Workshop 2

Today’s workshop began with the prompt: “Write about a time you took a risk.” We wrote silently for 15 minutes. Then, we read our work aloud. A new participant at CORNER Project, didn’t want to read out loud, but preferred that I read his piece out loud for him. His story was about the first time he used heroin. Participants liked the way he showed the experience as both positive and negative. Another participant wrote about the time he nearly cheated on his wife but decided not to, only to find out years later that the woman he almost slept with was HIV+. A third participant wrote about the time she took a risk by leaving a bad relationship to check herself into an extended stay rehab. Karen, my assistant, read a story about a time she was out drinking and had no money to get home, and so she clung on to the back of a New York Times delivery truck. After we all had all read and discussed our work, we had the option to stay and write more. 

Before and after the workshop, I hang out in the drop-in center, collecting stories from people who can’t or don’t want to come to the workshop. Today, a participant recited a poem that he had written and memorized. He tells me he has hundreds more, on all different subjects. 

Full of Rage 

By Johnny

Fighting a feeling thats consuming my soul 

Unaware that this sentence would incur such a toll

Lighting constantly courses through my veins 

Livid at being shackled, and spending years in chains.

Oppressed my a system I entered through my own accord

Fury allows me to pay a price so few can afford 

Resentment and anger unleash a primal desire 

Armageddon couldn’t compare to my internal Hellfire

Gluttony awaiting to be released from this cage 

Eager to show the world I’m no longer full of rage. 

ROUND III

Welcome back!

WHCP participants' pens are scratching the pads so hard they are making fire keeping us warm in this winter season. Check out the new posts!!

Week 1: What is memoir? 

A participant read our mentor text, an excerpt from Nick Flynn’s memoir, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City. I introduced it as a memoir. Another participant said he could relate. This is one of the things people like about this genre, memoir. What is memoir? If you’ve taken this workshop before you might know. What do I ask you to do in my classes? We tell our true stories, a participant offered. Yes, and we tell them artfully. Memoirs are the facts, what happened, told creatively. We want details, to show— not just tell what happened but show the emotional experience. All of our stories are, in some ways, similar. When someone tells a story of what happened to them, we can relate or “identify,” as a participant said. And, in other ways, all of our stories are unique, with their specific situations and details. 

Participants were asked to make a list of firsts. Like traumatic things? Someone asked. Maybe, I said. It’s true, oftentimes negative firsts stick with us, but these firsts can be about anything. One participant worked independently. Another worked with Karen, my new assistant.  Two others worked with me. We read our lists out loud, participants told some details of their favorite stories. We talked more about how we could relate, and also about how our stories varied. 

Some of our firsts:

First relationship
First fight
First funeral
First Car 
First time I was in jail
First car
First time I witnessed a murder
First time I was discriminated against  
First time I flew pigeons 
First hustle 
First trip 
First time someone paid me to not steal cars 
First steak 
First time I was traumatized
First time I had a pet 
First time I had a girlfriend