For seven weeks I have been sharing my passion for teaching creative writing with female inmates in our lcoal
Prison, known locally as 1735. It took awhile for us to find our rhythm and to trust each other...sometimes I wondered if i was really giving them my all and you know I found that whenever i left them - I felt like I had left a small piece of me with them. I found I really looked forward to the 90 minutes I spent with them locked physically and mentally in a small space..not everyone shared our vision and people ignored us, stood by and watched us like chimps in a glass cage.
Yet, six weeks later I stood beaming as they shared their work and took away a printed booklet - a priceless booklet that let them share with their world their feelings and thoughts in their own words and then today I sat with two young men, incacerated - physically contained with a limitless need to express themeselves......to have their words validated whilst at the same time hungry to do more...to grow beyond the confines of the cell and society's non-expectation of them as inmates.
The women became the Fantastc Five - so looking forward to seeing what the men become.....something tells me it's going to be a period growth.........
