Archive for the ‘Social Change’ Category

Listen to this new podcast on Alexandra Hartman's journey from poetry and web design to filmmaking and the disobedient body. Alex's website, and her entire 33-minute film –

The Word Made Flesh, an be viewed at her website. Her studies that led her here encompassed Embodiment Studies, Transformative Language Arts, Filmmaking and Women's Studies. Listen to our podcast at this link. 

Info from Goddard College's Worlds of Change site.

Moving Toward Authenticity: Connecting with Self, Others, and Nature Through Transformative Language Arts

The poem, above, has great significance, for it is in the context of the earth, hills, and mountains–indeed, the landscapes in which we live, move, and breathe–that we express and embrace our own unique authority, connecting with those other sentient beings–human and other-than-human–with whom we share this planet. Through the creative arts, whether it be dancing, painting, or transformative language arts, people can discover and affirm their own unique authority, bringing forth and embracing that which is most authentic about themselves.

The Story of Sherry Forty-five years old and severely depressed, “Sherry” (name changed to maintain confidentiality) was admitted to a mental health treatment center after a failed suicide attempt. While on shift one evening at the center, I discovered that one of Sherry’s interests was poetry-writing. So I knocked on her door and invited her to write poems together. “Sure,” she said, “but then I’m going back to bed.” So we sat at a table, picked out words from a bowl, and used these words as springboards for our poems. After sharing our creations, we spoke about Sherry’s interest in poetry-writing. When Sherry’s condition had improved somewhat, she handed me a poem that she had found in a magazine. The poem dealt with issues of separation and loss, much like those Sherry had experienced through the loss of her marriage. Eventually, she shared with me a poem that she herself had written. In it, she spoke about her desire to “embrace change.” Prior to her departure from the center, Sherry told me that she had begun to write poems regularly. She reflected on the poetry-writing process and how it had helped her unlock emotions and begin to work through her depression. Then she handed me a poem in which she spoke about her desire to “learn new things” and “create something new” in her life. She described the poetry-writing process as a way of “breaking up the log jam.” Poetry-writing was not a magic pill for Sherry, but it did give her an opportunity to begin to work through her depression and to gain some perspective on her divorce. In the short time that I knew her, I witnessed her gradually opening up as she began to express herself through poetry.

A Consideration of Terms The words “healing” and “transformation” are both employed in transformative language arts environments. The word heal derives from the Anglo-Saxon word haelan, to heal. Related words include hale, meaning in good health, or sound; and holy. Transform derives from the French transformer, which means to change the form of, to give a new form to, or to metamorphose. Whereas the word heal implies restoration to a state of wholeness or health, transform implies movement toward a new state of being. One of the goals of the transformative language arts process is to restore one’s sense of wholeness. Another is to create the conditions whereby transformation is possible. …Whoever you are, no matter how lonely the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting– over and over announcing your place in the family of things. From “Wild Geese,” by Mary Oliver How does transformative language arts help us deepen our connections with self, others, and nature? Three core tenets are critical to the process. First, everyone in the group has something unique and valuable to share. As part of the group, people announce their place in the “family of things” through the words they speak, the poems they share, and even through the simple act of announcing their name at the start of every group session. Second, everything in nature is divine. This tenet is reflected in the way in which everyone in group is treated with integrity and respect. We listen deeply, speak from the heart, and practice confidentiality. Respect extends beyond the human community to include Raven, Spider, Cedar, indeed, anything we bring into the process by way of the imagination, experience, memory, or dreams. The third tenet, we are all connected, is reflected in the words of Walt Whitman, in his poem “We Two, How Long We Were Fooled.” He says, …We are Nature, long have we been absent, but now we return, We become plants, trunks, foliage, roots, bark, We are bedded in the ground, We are rocks, We are oaks, we grow in the openings side by side… In group, we discover and express our own essential nature and honor that of others. When we meet, we seat ourselves in a circle, ancient symbol of wholeness, totality, and completion. § I am one who eats his breakfast gazing at morning glories. Matsuo Bash Poetic stems, creating springboards from poetic lines, and using visuals or aromas are among the many tools employed to help us re-connect with self, others, and nature. Poetic stems invite people to add their own responses to lines of poetry. The line “I am one who,” from the poem, above, can evoke such responses as “I am one who likes to laugh,” “I am one who loves the ocean,” or “I am one who feels sad.” I remember the time an individual responded, “I am one who does not want to share.” We move toward authenticity. Other poetic stems include “If you don’t know the kind of person I am….” (William Stafford) “I am so thankful I have seen…” (Alice Walker), and “In time of silver rain, the earth…” (Langston Hughes). The goal of poetic stems is to give people an opportunity to share something unique and honest about themselves. Springboards are similar to poetic stems, except that lines are used as springboards into longer poems. An excellent example of a springboard is the line, “I have roads in me…” from the poem of the same title by Jimmy Santiago Baca. People begin with the line, then follow it into a poem. In practice, poetic stems and springboards can be utilized interchangeably. It is simply a matter of how the facilitator elects to use them. Other evocative writing approaches include writing in response to visuals, such as photographs or post cards; to items from nature, such as sand dollars or stones; or to aromas. Aroma vials–including rosemary, chocolate, cinnamon, or coffee–stimulate the olfactory sense, but also the sense of taste. Through the memories evoked, they can lead us into a whole pallette of experiences about which to write. § And what if my words, my fledgling poems, were children, were toddlers trying first steps, tumbling, skinning knees, squealing with glee, splashing mud, making a mess, discovering themselves? Would I hold them at arm’s distance, disown them, hide them, say what I imagine others will think— that, after all, they really aren’t very good?… From “As They Are,” by Barbara McEnerney While working at the hospital recently, I invited a patient to participate in an expressive arts circle that I was facilitating. The patient declined, stating, “When I was a kid, I was told that most kids can do art, but that I was the one exception. Ever since that time, I have not done art.” The above example serves to illustrate one of the reasons that critique is not part of the transformative language arts process. Critique can cut off the creative flow at the very time an individual is beginning to open up. Therefore, one of the group covenants is that we operate from a place of curiosity, rather than critique. Operating from the curiosity model, people can say anything they want to about their poem–how they came to write it, feelings and emotions it evokes, or how it is related to events going on in their life. When finished, they may invite reflections from the group. Reflections include listening to the poem and selecting from it a detail that stands out. It can be an image, line, or word; or it can be a memory, association, or question the poem evokes. The curiosity model helps support the atmosphere of safety, security, and trust, which is another goal of the transformative language arts process.

Transformative Language Arts, as practiced by myself and others in the field, continues to evolve. Recently, for example, I introduced group drumming into the process, this as a way of helping people move closer to the underlying pulse of language and of providing a unifying experience before writing. I am also working with authentic movement practitioner Elizabeth Russell, co-director of Bodies in Balance, in Portland, OR, to integrate transformative language arts with authentic movement. We are all creative. It is our birthright as human beings. When we tap these resources in an atmosphere of safety, security, and respect; when we share from a place of openness and honesty, we move toward wholeness and authenticity. Through the creative arts, we are all connected to the sacred web of life.

Brian Moore holds an MA in Transformative Language Arts from Goddard College, in VT, and a certification in poetry therapy. Director of the Cascadia Arts and Healing Center, in Eugene, he facilitates transformative language arts groups at the Pathways Learning Center and the Sacred Heart Medical Center, in Eugene. He also facilitates Healing Landscapes, a writing group exploring the connections between the expressive arts and deep ecology. For further information about Brian and his work, or for information about upcoming workshops and events, contact the Cascadia Arts and Healing Center, in Eugene, at (541) 543-6380. For information about Body Story, Tree Story, an integrated transformative writing and authentic movement workshop, contact the Cascadia Arts and Healing Center, or go to www.bibpilates.net.

Valerie Harris Wins Transformation Award from Leeway Foundation!

TLA member, Valerie Harris is a recipient of the 2008 Transformation Award from the Leeway Foundation. The award is given to 13 women in Philadelphia, PA and the surrounding area whose art over the past 5 years impacts social change in their communities. Valerie received the award in Literature for her community-based Writers Academy/Teen Writers Academy workshops, publishing, and documentary video projects. The Transformation Award comes with a purse of $15,000. Valerie plans to use part of the funds to complete production of “A Highway Runs Through It…” a documentary that she has written and is producing on the history and current issues of the African American community in Darby Township, a once rural enclave on the outskirts of Philadelphia that has been threatened by redevelopment efforts. The documentary project evolved from a 10-week memoir writing workshop Valerie delivered at a senior center in Darby Township in 2006.

Although the study of Transformative Language Arts is still emerging and defining itself, ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances have been writing down their stories in order to find peace for hundreds of years. As a result, we have hundreds of first hand accounts of circumstances like surviving abuse to survival at sea.

In the coming years we will continue to find examples of this. Recently, I watched an episode of 60 Minutes. One of the stories highlighted veterans recently home from Iraq and the issue of post traumatic stress disorder. Apparently the armed forces are better at training how to kill than with training citizens how to make the transition back to civilian life. One man, Jesse Odom, said he dealt with what he saw and what he did by locking himself in his room with a six pack and writing into the wee hours of the morning. As a result of those writing sessions, those “purification rituals,” his book Through Our Eyes is being published this Memorial Day weekend. It is being heralded as a raw account of what our troops go through on a daily basis in Iraq and is sure to become a record of the experiences of a generation.

Creative Written Expression for Children: Heather Mandell

“The limons [sic] are my babys [sic]. If you hurt them, I will hunt you down and kill you.” Alex* read his surprising response out loud to the group. His rotund face raised up towards me with questioning eyes as if to ask, “Was my writing okay?”

“The tree sounds like it is a mother,” I replied to his questioning gaze.

“Yep. It’s a mama protecting her babies,” Alex said.

We were approaching the end of a creative written expression session that focused on a poem called The Tree Is Older Than You Are by Jennifer Clement, a poet and novelist from Mexico. I developed CWE (Creative Written Expression) workshops for a five-month, pilot program in an underserved elementary school near San Jose, CA. Alex’s third grade class consisted of 20 children with a demographic breakdown of 90% Latino, 5% Filipino and 5% Caucasian. Most of the children who participated in the workshops spoke Spanish as their primary language. Some of the poems were written in both Spanish and English to ensure comprehension. The Tree Is Older Than You Are was one of those poems.

Alex had responded to a writing prompt that invited him and others in the group to imagine what a tree might say if it could talk. Although Alex’s last sentence was written in an aggressive tone, he wrote empathically from the perspective of a tree as if it was a mother paying attention. It was the first time that Alex paid attention during the writing group, which was drastically different from the previous two workshops when he could barely sit still. Alex’s emotional writing is interesting because of his infamous reputation as a class bully and disruptive student. He spent much time in class making strange noises with his mouth, throwing things, and touching his neighbor on the head or poking the girl who sat on the other side of him. He was quick to get into a fight and was often reprimanded. He was one of those kids who always had to stay in during recess. During many of my creative written workshops, Alex’s disruptions were clearly annoying to the other children in the group. Often his writing was illegible and he made it clear that he was not interested in participating.

At one of the final sessions, I noticed a change in Alex. The day’s topic was on coping with bullies and the group read a poem called Stanley The Fierce by Judith Viorst. When we began our discussion about bullies, some of the children in the group pointed out that Alex was a bit like Stanley and that sometimes he hurt their feelings. In response, Alex raised his hand (this I had never seen him do) and disclosed, “Sometimes I get angry and I don’t know what I am doing.”

“So, it sounds like when you get mad, you stop thinking,” I responded

“Yes, that’s it,” he said frowning a bit.

“How do you think it makes others feel when you say mean things about them?”

“It makes them feel bad and mad?”

Alex tested the waters to find out if his response was appropriate. He remained quiet after sharing. It was the first time Alex asked others in the group about how his behavior made them feel. I looked to the members of the group and invited them to answer Alex’s question. Most nodded and Randy* told Alex that he felt bad and threatened by Alex’s bullying. Randy later wrote about bullies, “This bully tries to threaten me. Sometimes he makes people bleed but sometimes he looks scary. He always makes me feel so bad and so sad.”

Alex became very quiet during the rest of the workshop and he had a remorseful look on his face when Randy read his writing out loud. I invited the children to draw a comic strip about a bully, which Alex did without a word. It was the first time I had ever seen him quiet, sitting in his chair with his hands in his lap. He shared his comic strip and told the group that the bully in his drawing was scary and that the boy who was being bullied felt very bad.

Perhaps it was the first time that he had spoken out loud about making another person feel bad. It seemed that Alex was thinking about his behavior during the workshop. His behavior indicated that he was troubled in some way and writing gave him a small window view into how to act empathically rather than acting out in anger.

For children who have lived through or are living with distressful situations, writing can be a tool to express thoughts and feelings. Many children want to tell their personal stories. Most of the children participating in the pilot CWE workshops shared stories about fathers in jail, brothers that beat them with brass knuckles, communication problems between racial groups, dreams of going into the military or of becoming rock stars, and dreamy summers eating watermelon under trees in their homelands. When given an opportunity, the children shared many of their thoughts and feelings related to emotional events. I developed the workshops to increase the children’s emotional intelligence, self-awareness, and communication skills. My role as facilitator was to model listening and respectful communication. The poems’ metaphors did the rest of the work for me. During the bully workshop, Alex had the chance to look into a mirror and learn how his own behavior affected others around him. He was able to do this through the eyes of Stanley, a character in a poem. Alex’s peers bravely shared the challenges they faced when dealing with real bullies in their lives.

When I was a child, I too wanted to feel safe enough to tell of the challenges I faced as a child witness of domestic violence and alcoholism but instead, I turned to my journal, a safe place where I shared my stories with the blank page. It is for this reason that I am drawn towards work that furnishes an outlet for children to share their personal narratives if they choose to do so. I believe that children who experience various types of distressful events are in need of emotional expression and the long-term consequences of silence can be dire if no outlets are available.

The possibilities are many but there are also limitations that should be pointed out. Children who are appropriate for creative written expression workshops need to be distinguished from the children who are diagnosed with serious psychological disorders. Children in these circumstances should be assessed and treated by a licensed therapist or child psychologist. This creative written expression model was developed for use with developmental groups and may not be appropriate for children who are in crisis situations in which their lives are in jeopardy. For the child who is victim to ongoing physical or sexual abuse, the focus should be on providing a safe environment and crisis counseling first before group written work can take place.

The stories that are shared during CWE workshops are especially relevant for educators, counselors and social workers who take an interest in children’s well being. For counselors and social workers, the model can be used to determine what is going on in a child’s home. It is a process that uses metaphors to help children easily express thoughts and feelings about themselves. In addition, the model can help educators determine why a child might display disruptive behaviors in the classroom. The workshops may also be modified for use in group homes, domestic violence shelters, or other organizations that provide services for underserved or at risk youth. These are the children who can benefit from talking and writing about their lives.

In these times of fear politics and buzzwords such as “Axis of evil” and “Terrorism”, we need more than ever to model for our children how to listen to one another. It is critical to teach them to communicate with words rather than fists, guns and bombs. This is the time to teach non-violent ways of communicating. This is the time to nurture our children’s voices. They have much to say and we adults must be willing to listen and give them the space to speak.

This is the work that will unlock children’s minds and hearts. These narratives open our eyes to the silences behind closed doors. Writing is about sending words out into the world and children without voices need those words to bring the dark, untold stories into the light.

Author’s Note: Names that have been changed are marked with an asterisk (*) next to them. The children’s writing is reproduced exactly as they wrote it. I obtained written consent from each child’s guardian(s) to include their writing in public documents.

Heather Mandell recently graduated from Goddard College with a Master’s degree in Transformative Language Arts. She works at her county library where she enjoys performing baby, toddler and children’s story times. Through a local non-profit organization, Heather currently facilitates creative written expression workshops for children and young adults who have witnessed domestic violence. She lives in Northern California where she enjoys kayaking, hiking and writing about her experiences.