At Friends of the Children, King County, the young people come to their writing program with so much enthusiasm and commitment to openness that they tell the adults, “I’M GOING TO MAKE YOU CRY TONIGHT!”

And they do.

Recently, one young man’s sister was murdered by her boyfriend. The boy wrote about it. Then the other young people wrote about murders in their lives. And importantly, this writing and discussion opened the door not just for other similar experiences, but for the kids to write about grief and loss, from violence in the community, to death of loved ones, to estrangement from parents, siblings. Many of the kids talked about it being the first time they had the opportunity to commemorate, grieve, process, and hold these people in mind. This continues to be a strong theme in the writing and is incredibly therapeutic and empowering.

At the same time, in the manner of Pongo, as the young people write about difficult experiences, they also write with purpose and gratitude. After writing about tragedy, the kids will say that “a ton of bricks is off my back.” And the kids have taken charge of their writing program, which they named “Hearts Out Loud.” They planned the first public reading of their work.

For the adult mentors and volunteers who participate, they say that supporting this writing group, even working late one evening, is the highlight of their week. The kids open up. The mentors can’t get them to leave the building. The kids continue the conversations with their mentors on the ride home.

This writing group was created on the Pongo model. Friends of the Children is a mentoring program for children who are growing up in difficult circumstances. It provides consistent and caring companionship for these kids. The program accepts children in kindergarten or first grade and then commits to providing a paid mentor for each child for 12 years.

The writing group was started because of Robin Brownstein. Robin is a clinical social worker and psychotherapist who is also an unpaid consultant to FOTC. She approached me at a conference, where I was presenting my work on how writing can be a therapy for survivors of trauma. Robin is passionate about supporting the resilience of youth.

Later, I met with Robin and FOTC program director Edgar Masmela. They and some FOTC adult mentors and community volunteers attended the first Pongo workshop on our teaching techniques. I advised them on how to run their writing group. But, frankly, their writing group is successful today because Robin, Edgar, and the other adults have the hearts and minds to listen and hold the kids’ powerful words.

By the way, Robin informs me that the FOTC writing group knows me and Pongo. The kids have committed to “Richard’s rules”:

• You write what’s in your heart.
  
• This is a safe space.
  
• You can write about anything, and no one will judge you.

How lucky am I! I hope some of you who are reading this blog will eventually start your own writing groups on the Pongo model!

I’ve included a few of the FOTC children’s poems on the Pongo site, including one poem below.

WHEN I SEE FLOWERS
by a child in the Friends program

When I see flowers
I think of how pretty and beautiful they look to me
I like the beautiful colors and the nice smell
when I get close to it
and smell it.

When I see them and I'm mad
and I try and break one
because I'm mad about something at home,

I can break it
but then I realize that it's just like
breaking someone's finger
and pulling the stem that connects to the flower.

And then I think about how its life
is the same as mine
if you die you can't come back.

The flower's life depends on us
Yes

Because you kill a flower and it's just like pulling
their finger
it hurts you and the flower.

I protect the flower by not killing or pulling it
I protect the flower just like I protect myself.

Shannon spent most of seven years as an inmate at Mission Creek Correction Center, from the age of 30 to 37. For the last three years, since her release, she has returned to Mission Creek with Pat Graney and the “Keeping the Faith” dance project, to help her friends. (I mention Mission Creek and “Keeping the Faith” in an earlier blog post on February 7.)

I asked Shannon to have coffee and tell me her story. I admire her strength. I was surprised in three ways by our conversation: the profound suffering she endured as a child, the sense of fragility she has about her new life, and the depth of compassion that drives her to help other women like her.

Like many women now in prison, Shannon was sexually abused as a child. In her case the abuse occurred between the ages of 3 and 7, perpetrated by a family friend. She was introduced to drugs by her family at the age of 9. Her father used drugs to sexually abuse her when she was a teen. She was a cutter, engaged in suicidal behaviors, was hospitalized. She became an IV drug user at 26, when she also entered an abusive relationship with her girlfriend. Her long history is dominated by stealing and drug dealing to support a drug habit.

About her current life, working with Pat, Shannon says she stumbled upon success, “Nobody wants to succeed when you’ve always failed. It’s scary as hell.” Shannon talked to me with her hands sweating. She says it’s a fight every day. A slip up last Christmas, drinking with an old friend, reminded her that she’s 48 hours away from returning to her former life. Shannon rejected her old friend. That friend did return to the former life, abandoning a young child in the process.

When I asked Shannon what had changed for her, she pointed to writing and dance with Pat Graney, but mostly to simple things – the passage of time, the wish not to return to prison, the desire to survive. The biggest difference in Shannon’s life now is that she has a whole new set of relationships, where caring doesn’t mean being partners in self-destruction.

Like many survivors of abuse, Shannon has deep compassion for others. Making a difference for them is an essential part of healing. Inside Mission Creek today, facilitating writing and dance, Shannon does not think about herself, her own struggles. She is also very uncomfortable with her own accomplishments. Instead, Shannon is often close to tears, dealing with the inmates’ suffering and hoping for a better life for her old friends.

For the past four years Pongo has surveyed its writers. I want to share the latest results because of what they reveal about distressed teens – their enthusiasm for art and for change, and also their insight into their own lives and their appreciation for those who care. (And I want to share the latest results because I believe in the Pongo method, and I want you to try it! Please read our web site and get in touch.)

Let me explain right away that every teen who works with Pongo in a one-on-one session completes a survey, unless we run out of time. The survey-takers are not a self-selected group. Also, when we choose youth to participate in a one-on-one session we give priority to teens who have never written before and who may be having a difficult time that day. (About one-third of Pongo writers are pretty new to writing, about one-third write a lot.)

As you probably know, the teens currently participating in Pongo are either in juvenile detention or the state psychiatric hospital for children. Many have suffered greatly in their childhoods. They have good reason to be angry, withholding, and mistrustful.

Here are the results of surveys collected last year from 100 different individuals:

1. Did you enjoy this writing experience? [YES - 100%]
2. Do you feel proud of the writing you did with us? [YES - 99%]
3. Did you write about things you don’t normally talk about? [YES - 73%]
4. Do you feel you learned something about writing? [YES - 88%]
5. Do you feel you learned something about yourself? [YES - 75%]
6. If you wrote about things that are bothering you, did the writing help you feel better? [YES - 86%]
7. Do you think you might write more in the future? [YES - 92%]
8. If so, do you think you might write during times when life is difficult? [YES - 93%]

About one-third of the teens in detention wrote optional comments, and most of these said that Pongo is cool and awesome. (Thank you!) The other comments showed the teens’ insight into their own process:

• “I feel like weights have been lifted off my shoulders.”
• “This writing was really fun even though the things I was thinking of were really sad.”
• “I love writing, and I feel good that I can share it with people who care.”
• “I love writing something that keeps me cool when I’m mad.”
• “I’m proud you all came because I would not have expressed myself.”
• “I think I let out a lot that was on my mind.”
• “It raises my spirit."
• "A very positive vibe.”
• “It was a good experience for me because it helped release tension and stress.”
• “Writing expresses a lot and helps me release stress.”
• “It really helped me get stuff out of my mind.”
• “It was a stress reliever.”
• “It really helped me with how I was feeling.”

By the way, this year's survey results are completely consistent with Pongo's surveys over four years, from 386 distressed teens. (Pongo is cool and awesome.)

On Friday I led a poetry workshop at Mission Creek Corrections Center, a women’s prison in Washington State. The first line of the first poem in the first group was “Why did he have to touch me there?”

The women wanted to write about childhood sexual abuse, a prevalent problem in the lives of incarcerated women. It hadn’t been my plan to begin with that deep and personal topic.

I admired the women for their openness and for the support and applause they offered one another. Women turned to their friends to help them finish and read their work. They handed around a roll of toilet paper to dry their tears.

Sometimes people in the community ask me if the work I do through Pongo is depressing. They read the sad poetry, but they aren’t privileged as I am. I see writers in their moment of triumph, vulnerable and brave.

Another thing about Friday’s group is that it confirms one of the messages of Pongo – that helping people write in a healing way is about removing obstacles to self-expression. People who are hurting want to make sense of their lives. They understand that writing and sharing can accomplish this.

What are some of the obstacles that have to be removed to enable writing? We have to let people know that we can tolerate their feelings and respect their process. As witnesses, we have to be vulnerable ourselves. Also, as part of Pongo, we have to support people as they begin a writing process by providing writing structures. With the women at Mission Creek I used an activity called “You Don’t Know Me .”

The experience at Mission Creek reminds me of another thought I've had from the Pongo work: I think one of the reasons society institutionalizes certain suffering populations is that we’re often afraid of their pain, of the intense feelings their lives evoke in others.

Finally, I'd like you to know the context for my work at Mission Creek. I am leading some writing groups in support of my friend Pat Graney, the choreographer, who is in her 15th year of Keeping the Faith performance projects with incarcerated women. Pat’s performances by women in prison include art and music, and importantly, personal writing. The public can attend the two performances at Mission Creek in May. Contact the Pat Graney Company .

Many of the teens who write with Pongo have suffered trauma. And that distress leaves them silent, determinedly silent, helplessly silent – with a black hole in the spirit where their feelings are sucked inside.

It’s important to understand this silence in order to understand many suffering young people, and how they can be helped to poetry, and by poetry.

Black Hole
by Erica (a homeless young woman, about 15 years old)

My heart and my spirit are
very different.
My heart’s saying Yes,
but my spirit says No.

What’s the matter with me,
can you hear me,
can you even feel me?

I feel like a black hole,
something so gone.
I’m here but lost in…

but lost in what?

You try to finish the rest.

Often when people think about writing classes, they think about an expert writer who teaches skills and refinements of communication to people who already express themselves, even if those students don’t yet understand the deep reflection that writing can facilitate.

On the other hand, consider the people who have a black hole in the spirit. Many Pongo authors have suffered trauma, such as abuse, and their feelings are buried deep inside. Among the effects of trauma, people can be in shock and numb, cut off from feeling. Trauma itself can be overwhelming and people might repress the experience, or disengage from the experience in a more extreme way as if their traumatized feelings are part of an entirely separate personality.

Trauma can leave a person hypersensitive and overly reactive. This is not silence as such, but it might be a painful diversion from more painful feelings. Some people are aggressive. Some people hurt themselves. They unconsciously avoid feelings of traumatic loss.

Then there are traumas that exert an even more brutal grip on feelings. If a child has been abused by a parent, the child might blame herself or behave in other ways that protect the relationship with the parent. Also, the family may adapt to the abuse by placing great responsibility on the child, including the responsibility to keep the abuse a secret.

Guilt and shame are also powerful effects of trauma, and are contributors to a person’s silence. And so on.

For people who have suffered trauma, who feel a black hole in the spirit, poetry heals them by integrating experience and feeling.

Pongo enables that integration by listening to experiences and by placing a person’s words in the feeling-ful medium of poetry. Beyond that, the Pongo method is essentially gradual, nonintrusive, supportive, and caring.