Gemini Ink’s Writers In Communities (WIC) 2009 fall projects kick off September 11 with a talk on taking control of your life through writing by Austin writer Abe Louise Young. Young will speak to an audience of 40 returning high school students working toward their General Equivalency Diploma (GED) at the East Central High School Learning Academy (ECHS). The students will participate in two Gemini Ink writing workshops. One group comprises young parents working on an anthology of food stories for their children. The second group will work on a poetry/ceramic project, incorporating text into mosaics.
Much of Young’s work focuses on oral history projects, education, and community literacy. A 2007 recipient of an MFA in writing from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin, Young’s publications include Hip Deep: Opinion, Essays, and Visions from American Teenagers (Next Generation Press, 2005), and a DVD First in the Family: How to Make it to College (Next Generation Press and the Lumina Foundation for Education, 2006).
WIC talked with Abe Louise about bringing poetry and personal storytelling into the community.
WIC: As a writer and community activist, you’ve spent a lot of time traveling around the US visiting schools, documenting student initiatives, as well as teaching documentary methods on campuses. How can documenting stories change a community?
ALY: Documenting stories changes communities because it deepens commitment to shared work. It does that by creating reflection, and reflection creates growth and awareness, deepens bonds between people, and allows them to proceed with greater agency and awareness.
Documenting work lets us share stories with the public, so energy comes into the community from outside. People want to connect, query, support, and feel the excitement of the project. Material resources like money, time and supplies might emerge out of thin air. Students see that what they are doing matters, that they are contributing knowledge to our society as a whole, and many people want to support their positive efforts.
WIC: You’ve worked a lot with ethnic minorities. One of your projects is a DVD: First in the Family: How to Make it to College, in which you interviewed first-generation college students around the country. What are your thoughts on the number of minorities going to college today?
ALY: Many more first generation students start college than finish it. We need to know why, and to change those circumstances. The students who contributed their stories to First in the Family had a lot of advice to offer low-income and ethnic minority students from their own experience–How does it feel when no one else in your neighborhood is going away to college? How do you deal with your parents not understanding your choice to leave home? How do you respond when you’re the only person of color in your class, and people make rude assumptions about the group or place you come from?
The 14 students who shared their stories in the project have a lot to teach about how colleges can support ethnic minorities to complete higher education. My bottom-line feeling is that higher education should be free, and America’s college classrooms function best when they reflect America’s diversity.
WIC: You’ve also spent much of your career working with victims of disaster such as Katrina evacuees, Holocaust rescuers, and many who are down on their luck, whether they be in prison or homeless. How do people who don’t consider themselves writers respond to someone wanting to help them tell their story?
ALY: A real emotional connection is often all that’s needed to establish trust with people who don’t consider themselves writers. Saying, “I see you. I want to learn from you. What have you experienced? [is often enough].”
When people tell their stories, they are our teacher. They are giving a gift. There’s a lot of talk about “giving people voice,” or “helping people find their voice.” I don’t like those phrases. I think every person already has a voice.
WIC: In an interview you did recently with writer and theatre artist Sharon Bridgeforth, Bridgeforth says she was “at home” when she met the Austin arts activist community. How important is it to be around like-minded people, and what if a would-be writer or youth activist doesn’t have that community to fall back on?
ALY: I think it’s quite personal. It’s an incredible blessing to find like-minded people to be with. We’re relational animals. We figure out how to be in the world by trying things out with other people, and if those people don’t perceive us, then we might not learn to honor ourselves. Sharon Bridgforth builds communities as part of every residency, performance, or writing project. The great late poet Sekou Sundiata did the same. The message was that the communities we’re in are powerful and worthy bonds to hold on to. For young writers or activists, the community of origin is a great place to work.
At the same time, there’s a noble tradition of the artist hermit. Anyone with access to a library can find a community of writers who speak directly to them through ink on paper. Who do you consider your lineage? What spiritual ancestors do you claim? Who do you want to dialogue with? Literary communities transcend time.
WIC: When we spoke the other day, you spoke of your opening talk with the ECHS groups as if it were a ceremony. By using words like “honor,” “gift,” and “spirit” I was reminded how new endeavors can be ceremonial. How does honoring our stories feed our spirit?
ALY: I think of the song lyric: “We are our grandmother’s prayers. / We are our grandmothers dreaming.” Writing together lets us share the experience of being connected to each other fully. Listening to one another deeply, we see that we are the same. And, we each have a different thread of the big fabric. We take a risk, put ourselves on paper, then read those newborn words aloud, reveal our inner life or unique history, and people listen and are changed.
WIC: In your workshops, what do you hope your students will take home with them?
ALY: I want people to feel their own potential creative power, and feel deeply supported. I hope students take home the desire to write more.
Visit Abe Louise Young at www.abelouiseyoung.com and Beyond Words Workshop.
