New Poem

Hi everyone,

I have written a new poem and would like to know what you think of it.
Thanks.

Melodie

Silent No More

Once upon a time
I endured in silence Told by others

“Stay silent'
“Don't talk”
“Shush”
“Shut up”
“Don't you dare cry”
“I don't want to hear it”
Silence was ingrained
Into my life
My personality
By endless repetition
As I grew older
I still found it hard
To talk freely
To share my ideas
My dreams
My ambitions
I found writing
Helped to free
What was locked
Deep inside
Waiting to be set free
My heart
My mind
My soul
No longer
Will I stay silent
Letting others
Decide Whether I can
Have a say or not
I am in charge
Of my voice
Of my heart
I am no longer
Willing to be
Pushed into invisibility
Which is where
Silence leads to
For if we don't speak
We fade slowly
Into the background
We become forgotten
Like a half
Remembered dream
I am silent no more
My voice will be heard
Sometimes above the
Roars of the crowd
For I am silent
No More!

Thanks again.

Who I am

Hi Everyone,

My name is Melodie Clarke. I was involved in Steve's class last semester and came to London for the Fed Fest. I am a senior at Syracuse University. I am an Anthropology Major with a minor in writing. I am taking steve's class next semester also and I am hoping to come to the next festival.

I have a disease called Sarcoidosis which is an autoimmune disease. My is systemic, so it can appear anywhere is my body and it usually does. I'm sorry for taking so long to post on the blog. I was sick out of school for a week, then my husband was admitted to the hospital. He has since come out of the hospital, thankfully. Then my apartment was basically condemned, because my landlady never fixed anything in the apartment and I was getting lung problems from the black mold in the apartment. We now have another apartment, which is smaller, but is really cute. It has a few problems, but the realtors are working to fix them.

I am back using a wheeled walker, because of a vitamin B-12 deficiency, which causes dizziness and bad balance. I fell on campus twice this semester, once down part of a flight of stairs landing on a marble floor. Ouch!!! Did that hurt. I am on oxygen not only at night now, but also when walking around. My doctor believes that the black mold might be causing the problem. He hopes that now that I am no longer in the old apartment that my lungs will get better and won't need the oxygen when I am walking.

At the moment I am on antibiotics for bronchitis. I hope to be feeling better very soon.

I have a piece on the second point of the manifesto. I am also continuing on with what I was working on from last semester. There will be pictures downloaded in the next two days that go with it.

I am a older non-traditional student and I am hoping to go on to grad school to study some part of biblical archaeology. I might even be able to study in England, nothing is set in stone yet.

Melodie

Personal Intro

Please give a brief personal introduction. Include how you have become involved with the blog (FWWCP, Worker Writer's Group or Steve's class) and any info you feel would help everyone get to know you better. Perhaps a brief description of your educational experience would help because of the nature of our discussion.

Manifesto Point #1

Education should teach a global humanity (not the humanities) based on an alternative sense of history and where cooperative values and restorative justice are primary.

Revision #1- as created by Brian
…Sorry if this is a bit rantish but indulge me…when thinking about any revolutionary change… and I'm talking directly about our first point…there seems to be this aura of impossibility that hovers over everyone…its frustrating to think that this is so rampant that its not even the real world supplies me with my first thoughts on how we can change this…it's the older gentle man in Jurassic Park, perhaps he stole it from someone else, regardless he said: “Creation is an act of sheer will”…In other words, to borrow again…just do it. Testing is not the answer to convincing people to effect change, you just have to start doing it. Like the way Paolo Friere speaks about living the revolution, you just go ahead and do it, lead by example. It can't be in isolation, that's not going to connect, build support…its all about the practice, not the theory…real world experimentation…and you're saying: “But it's too bold”…“How can we actually implement it”…You start small…bottom up, not top down…You go to a small town with people with open minds and build out…Or an inner-city desperate for anything that works…if the ideas are good it will catch. And that's just it, I don't hear a lot of people saying they don't like the concepts…the word ideal is tossed around…the ideas seem sound. We're just lacking the initial will to act. A president once said we'd go to the moon, and we did. If anyone else had said it at the time they would've been laughed out of the room. So what if the president said our manifesto point…was really serious about education…Would you think it 100% impossible then…People have claimed education as a priority for years but there's just not the track record to show it. If we think the change is important than let's actually make it a national priority…otherwise we can just keep saying, “But we're trying…It's impossible to fix”…Be the change you wish to see in the world…I forget who said that but by now you get me…And if I'm coming off a little self-righteous and you want to know what am I “actually” doing, well you're right…I guess I'm just doing what I can for now, which is ranting on this blog…again, apologies…

Manifesto Point #2

All educators must move from subconsciously teaching students to be a Westernized version of
“them” to teaching the essential equality among

Manifesto Point #3

All educators must move from subconsciously teaching students to be a Westernized version of
“them” to teaching the essential equality among individuals and cultures.

Manifesto Point #4

The conceptual equality taught to students must also be manifested in equal funding and equal
access to well-maintained school facilities.

Manifesto Point #5

To base an education system on any other values accepts a fundamental inequity in society and
acceptance that not all human potential will be fulfilled.

Disabilities: Nick

Long term illnesses and worker's issues: In the UK (in fact in literature generally) there is a considerable amount of material. In the FWWCP there are national groups like survivor's poetry (link through the FWWCP website) who are concerned with writing from a mental health perspective; there are community publications around specific health conditions (in 1993 QueenSpark in Brighton produced three books on surviving stroke with narratives by carers and relatives and also by people who had experienced strokes); and there are other books like: Incurably Human Written and illustrated by Micheline Mason, published by Working Press, price £7.99. ISBN 1 870736 38 9. Available from the publishers (add £2 p&p) at 47 Melbourne Avenue, London N13 4SY. This is an account of disability issues by a disabled activist who is also a mother, and offers a lot of challenges to establishment views. It is well written. Although it has been argued that disabled people are largely absent from the community of community publishers I htink you have to read around to see that many people actually turn to writing when long term illnesses change their lives and they decide to reflect on what has happened to them. So, there is a wealth of literature, some examples of which might be the work of Spike Milligan, On the Other Side by Alfred Kubin, Sylvia Plath, Keats, where writers have been dealing with, or writing against a background of a long term health condition. If you want to look into this from a critical point of view there is also a wealth of material, such as Anthony Storr's Dynamics of Creativity, Harper Collins. There are a lot of books published by Jessica Kingsley, London, which are specifically about writing with people with disabilities or illness - Fiona Sampson is one author in particular to chase up.

As an occupational therapist this issue interests me particularly and one aspect is the need to build community through narratives. So in an approach called community based rehabilitation you would work with people who have experienced traumatic circumstances (e.g. surviving Hurricane Katrina) and need to rebuild a sense of who they are and who they have been in order to see where they are going to go next. Similarly you might employ autobiography with people with dementia or people wiht learning difficulties or mental health problems - and hence the work with people who had had a stroke. One of the reasons for doing this is so that people who work with them can read the stories behind them, so you are able to see the personality. Communities are partly built out of shared narratives - which is possibly why the Fed operates as a community.

Disability: Melodie

I also suffer from short term memory problems from the disease itself and the
medication. I am also having some cognitive problems also from medication. I
agree that it is very frustrating.

there is a treatment out there that is supposed to treat the disease and its
symptoms but my doctor is reluctant to instigate it. She says that if another
doctor starts the treatment program then she will oversee the program. I find
that even more frustrating. There is a treatment that has been helping others
with this disease and you can't get your doctor to cooperate.

Maybe we can do something along the lines that you stated. It will be
interesting to see where it evolves to

Disabilities: Anne

it was interesting to read of your illness. I suffer from

Systemic Lupus Arithmatosis...

basically my body is allergic to itself and this is manisfested in short term memory recall which I find very frustrating. At present I'm fighting to get my working hours put back on to the 09.00-17.00 basis and have presented both therapist and doctors lines - to no avail sometimes, so maybe we could do something on these lines

Disability: Nick

I'd only heard of sarcoidosis in passing (my background as an OT is in mental health), so following your email I looked up a few web references. http://www.sarcoidcenter.com/sarliterary.htm#Literary made me think of how the other day I took several masters students to meet some people I occasionally work with in a centre for people with early onset of dementia, an unrelated condition, but also one which is not sufficiently recognised and often not diagnosed early enough for people to be enabled to make choices for themselves about managing their own lives. One of the service users there was a local politician and has been instrumental in getting the day centre set up in a way that favours what the service users want to do. He advised my students - OT managers in the health service - "what you want to do is get some service users together and take them with you to argue for resources. You're professionals, and you'll get fobbed off. Service users can say things that are a bit naughty and make the arguments, they haven't got anyone paying their wages. Let them do the talking." His other maxims, following this, was "keep battling on, and only fight battles you can win." Only fighting battles you can win doesn't sound too promising a tactic, but he explained, using examples of disputes he'd experienced, how you can use seemingly unrelated battles to wear down the confidence of those opposed to you.

This group (People Relying on People, PROP - an acronym chosen because it is associated with a pit prop, Doncaster being a mining area) has done a lot of arguing for resources through using the narratives of their own experiences, and effective use of humour, to drive home the lack of recognition of early onset dementia. They've got a website on www.mhilli.org/network/employment . One of the presentations another member of the group gave at a recent open day is illustrative. A man walked up to the mike with an executive briefcase, making the point that several of the hospital executive were there and also had them. He then opened up, explaining that his experience of dementia was like this: he used to have a briefcase too, this is the one he used for work, but now he hasn't got any of the things he needed for work (pulling out various items like a toy phone, toy car, doll to represent a secretary, map to symbolise a sense of where he is). The brain is like a computer (pulls out piece of plastic on which a keyboard is drawn), but all he has got is a blank screen with nothing going on (reverses plastic to show a blank screen). But it's not entirely true, he's still able to give this presentation. Because he has dementia doesn't mean that is how he has to be treated, as if he's already switched off.

The group has developed a high profile in the local area and nationally. It hasn't really needed a celebrity - people have used the hard facts of their own narratives to get across the point to targetted people. You'd have to be very hard faced to argue with them.

PROP aren't a Fed group (though I've tried to get them involved), other Fed members present similarly effective material, and Rosie Lugiosi (also a member of this group) has already made the point that because you are a survivor poet it doesn't mean that survivor poetry has to be all about mental health issues. It's perhaps about getting to straddle the borders of marginalisation. Rosie Lugiosi's lesbian vampire queen stage act comes from a multiplicity of outsider perspectives, which allows her to confront all kinds of issues - for a start because the audience is wondering what on earth will happen next. I think this has to be true of any writing and performance - what is the man from PROP going to pull out of the briefcase next? There's a point at which despite there being something very different going on, you nonetheless are lulled along by the familiar or the recognisable, suspending disbelief perhaps, and then you are hit with the punchline. Once you have an audience recognising and identifying with the story, then you are on you own territory, and you're fighting a battle you can win.. Or at least, getting a point over.

As my friend says, "keep battling on."

Working Life: Dave

E7/E11 - A Walk in the Park.*
“It's a lovely day, let’s go over the park.
Just the two of us, we'll stay there till dark

We make sandwiches, lettuce, tomato and cheese,
A drink - and - “That’s the ‘phone, can you answer it please.

“Hi Dad, howsit goin? What? That sounds nice We’ll come too
“They’re on the way, we need something for littl’un to chew

“Hey Bonzo!” She says with a graceful air.
“His name is Ashley, you call him that fair

It trips off the tongue, it’s a lovely name.
“But he’s on marmite doorsteps just the same.

The other one comes in with his latest mate
“Hey whereyegoin’? Can we come? Great!

Just the two of us? I think and scratch my head
Now we are seven. A quiet walk, or a long lie in bed?

Long time ago we chose the latter
A lot less stress, a lot less chatter

But that’s what made us two three.
Then four and five and, well bless me.

“Come on, let’s get moving” I say with a laugh
To the magnificent seven, well, six and a half.

We left the house and strolled down the lane
The food pack I carry gives me no pain

On past the bus stop, under the train bridge
Onto the ‘Flats’ and the path on the small ridge

Which leads us along under trees in the shade
By shallow pond where ducks only wade

“I like walking the Flats and up in the park,
Under tall high tops with dappled gray bark,

Of Platanus Hispanica,” It gets funny looks,
“The London Plane,” says he of the books,

“Up Here,” He says, “There’s lots more trees
The pack on my back is making me wheeze

Up Blake Hall Road into Reservoir Woods
A place that has many and varied moods

A place mottled with bright
And lots of soft light

And onto a path of welcoming shade
Where a tree can be respectfully laid

When it succumbs, to great age, to great age.
A haven for life now, says our great sage.

In the middle, astounded, we stop and we stare
At the Quercus Robur in front of us there.

A great English Oak as we all say
“Four hundred years old if it's a day,

So long ago since it was born
>From an Elizabethan acorn.

Ashley’s Mum looks up at the tree,
I’ve climbed it, and just up there, see

She points “there’s a place you can hide
Whenever you feel kind of lonely inside

“When you were away, I sat there and felt better
And safe in it’s arms I wrote that love letter

They smiled and they kissed under that old oak
They laughed and we all joined in the joke.

When Ashley laughed and tugged at her skirt
They walked on said “Come on Squirt

To Wanstead Park, where there’s water and with luck,
We can stop littl’un thowin’ bread AT a duck.

A girl is here, throwing a stick
“Fetch it,” she cries, her pet’s called Mick

Then a great big guy with a great big dog
Throw a stick? Naw. He throws a great big log

Gallumphin’ lump makes some of us wail
But growling’s denied by the wallopin’ tail.

We relax in the sun and we feed and we drink
And close eyes and lie back and just; think.

“Oh hello, fancy meetin’ you here.
Haven’t seen you for, must be three year

We’ll have to meet and go for a drink
One night next week seems awright I think?

We both get our share of disapproving looks.
But at least a night out is set in our books.

We’ve fed and watered and decide to go
When littl’un says that he wants the po.

A do that’s a bit rum,
And a quick change of a bum.

Then we’re off like a commando assault team.
Straight for the place that’s sellin’ the ice cream

That we can see, a big blob on the path

And we hear his mum expressing her wrath.

There stands a young lad, of medium size,
Empty cone in his hand, and tears in his eyes.

“You daft apeth.” She says with a terrible frown
“I told you not to hold it up side down.

The Doric columns make it look a bit classic
But facilities there are really quite basic

Ice cream, buns, coffee or tea
“A cone for him and one for me

We all got our wants and sat on a stool
and licked and enjoyed what was real cool.

To the wasp on my hand I gently said “shoo
And what do you know, away he flew.

Then Ashley laughed as the others danced
And waived and ducked and jinked and pranced

Trying hard to keep the beasties off their ice
’Cause they think that wasps are really not nice

After that limber up we get away
Now that we’re fit and ready to play

Over the ‘back’ on the big green
Quite breathless, we’re there to be seen

Kicking, catching or throwing a ball
Football or rugby, we’ll try them all

Hammers winning till Grandad went
And scored a goal for Orient

Tried and tired we lay down on the grass
And finish the food and most of the mass

Of soft drink and water, my pack’s now light
While tickling starts another mock fight

Shadows lengthen the sun’s heading west
Nanny’s wisdom says it would be best

If we headed home for a nice cup of tea
And nobody argued, not even me

Back through the reservoir Woods
Seeing another of the ‘gloamin’ moods

Down the road, when I’ve nothing to carry
Meant that we didn’t have reason to tarry

So, back over flats, over the small ridge
Onto the street and under the train bridge

Past bus stop and turning into the lane
Too soon we were indoors, home again

And Littl’un struggles to keep eyes open wide
But his head's already gone off to one side

Quick tea and a chat and we’ll do this some more
Just time for a hug and we’re at the front door

Time for the kids to go their way
Time for us two to enjoy this day

While stars appear in the darkening sky
The car door slams, we hear “See ya, Bye.

Working Life: Joan

In response to what Nicolas said about the UK being a "secular society", I suppose, technically, the US is, also. Or, at least, it is supposed to be.

One of the first assignments Steven gave to us was to have us read "Selections from the Prison Notebooks" by Antonio Gramsci. While discussing this in class, several times Steven would say that Gramsci kept asking "Why do workers and peasants constantly vote contrary to thier own best interests? Why MussolinI? Why Fascism?"

This is a question that I, here in the US, ask myself, constantly. Why do Republicans control, not only the White House, but also the House and the Senate? There are clearly more working class people in this country than wealthy businessmen.

When I was a child, my parents included me in all political discussions. I clearly remember my Dad telling me "We're Democrats. Republicans are for the rich, and Democrats are for the little guy. Therefore,! we're Democrats." My Dad was driving a cab when he told me that. Later on, he would find a job in a factory were he worked for more than 10 years, unttil he died of lung cancer with no retirement, no insurance. His friends all pitched in to bury him.

I was 4 when my Dad told me that. I vividly remember, because later on we went to the polling place, where I sat on a chair with my little legs dangling and watched my parents go into the curtained booths. I knew they were voting for John F. Kennedy, who my mother thought was a savior. However, I also knew that while I was in the polling place, I wasn't supposed to talk about who they were voting for. I followed the rules of voting with the greatest of solemnity, as I was taught by my Atheist Mom to honor that process religiously.

I few years ago, I was living in rural Central New York, and I saw farmer after farmer in dilapidated old pickups and ragged clothing with Bush/Cheney bumper stickers.
!
I knew, from living out there and talking to people, that many of these farmers were on the verge of losing thier family farms that thier ancestors had worked for generations. They were hanging on under Clinton, but after the first 4 years of Bush, they were facing economic disaster (as was I, btw).

And yet, Bush got re-elected in 2004. Why? Because Bush represented the farmers "Traditional Christian Values". Not only that, but many of them were VERY concerned about "Gay Marraige". This issue was so important to them that they were willing to lose thier family farms in order to keep my partner of 12 years & I from getting married!

This is all very curious, don't you think? And, what I think is even more curious, is that, in my day-to-day life, when I tell people that I am a Religion & Society major, or, that I consider myself a "religious scholar", they usually take a step back from me, as though I just told them that I was a paranoid schizophrenic and I hadn't taken my meds. Most people in the US do not trust religion either.

This is all related, in a holistic sort of way, because I haven't had health insurance in YEARS. What is more, if I do GET a job that includes some sort of health benefits, I usually can't afford them, anyway. I LONG FOR your country's socialized medicine! And further, if I DO get a job with health benefits, and I CAN afford them, I usually can't do anything about my partner, who has an invisible disability. I can't get her health insurance as my spouse, AND, Social Security says that her disability is not "severe enough" to qualify.

So, what do I do?

When I get sick, I use the alternative medicines that I learned as part of my alternative religion (I am a neo-Pagan). It is good for arthritis, bronchitis and stomach flu. And headaches. If I get cancer, oh, well.

If my PARTNER gets cancer, then what?

This is a very complex subject, and I fear I have not come close to doing it justice today. It just so happens that I slipped on the ice at my job as a school bus driver on Wednesday and hit my head on the concrete. I am going to be ok, but I have now come down with a severe cold, possibly pneumonia, from laying out on the icy concrete waiting for the ambulance to come. I have a fever and my head is spitting.

Working Life: Melodie

I myself has done a variety of jobs (data entry,
telemarketing, factory temp jobs, doce at an newport Rhode Island Mansion,
house cleaning, and various and sundry things). My huband is an help desk
analyst for Burger King in Syracuse.
I worked two jobs so that my husband could go to New Egland Tech. Our
deal was that he would go to school first, then I would go to school. At first I was
going through a group called vesid, but they wanted me be an elementary school
teacher. I decided that I didn't want to continue in that field. I stopped using vesid and decided to double major anthropology/earth sciences. I wanted
to do something that I really wanted to do.

Working Life: Joan

Ok, I know it is a way of dealing with stress. I know that I am a highly intelligent, creative person, who has been forced by economics to work in sometimes very mindless, and certainly, non-creative, types of jobs for the first 50 years of my life.
Yes, this is very stressful. It is HARD to sit down and write after working 8, 10, 12 hours, when all of your friends are hanging out, doing things together, and all I really want to do sit at my computer and play The Sims.
I have given up on writing several times. When I was married, my husband was very jealous of the time that I spent at the typewriter, so he SCATHINGLY criticized everything I wrote. I didn't write for years, even after we got divorced.
I have spent a lot of time thinking that "this writing thing" was a waste of my time, and why shouldn't I be able to have time off like everyone else?

Here is where I am right now (and, btw, part of the reason WHY I am here is that I studied the Bardic Tradition in an American group).

The Buddhists say:
Before I was enlightened,
I chopped wood and carried water.

After I was enlightened,
I chopped wood and carried water.

I have come to think of my difficulties as a gift. I can write about a lot of things that a lot of other people cannot. Once when I was in the 5th grade, my Mom & Dad had split up for awhile My Mom and I lived in the End of the Trail Motel (no joke!). We had a little one room cabin in a row of little one room cabins with no back door and no phone. Our neighbors were all drug addicts and prostitutes.

One night an argument between 2 gangs broke out outside. One of the men got stabbed with a broken beer bottle. He layed on our doorstep and begged to be let in. We were too terrified to move, not wanting to get involved in ANY L.A., gang issues. After a while, a car came and took him away. The owner came out the next morning and cleaned up the evidence, all the blood, all the glass. No one called the police.

A lot of people would say that it is TERRIBLE that I had that experience as a child, but I don't think so. I think it makes me a better writer.

One of my favorite songs by John Denver is called "Joseph & Joe". There is a line in the song that always makes me cry:

Take heed of the darkness

Which gathers around us
A fire that consumes us
Forever to burn
Then look to the sun
For our father is with us
Our mother will teach us
What we need to l! earn

That wouldn't work for me unless I had a strong spiritual core. When "bad things" happen, I look at it as Mother Nature teaching me what I need to learn.

I am also, currently, working poor. I grew up working poor, although I did, for awhile, belong to the middle class in a technical capacity.

That is tough. 4 years ago, I was an application developer. I had a house full of antiques on 3 acres of land and 300 feet of private beach on Lake Ontario.

This year, we did without electricity for then entire month of August, my partner's car was repo'd on Thanksgiving, and we have been getting a LOT of our food from food pantries. This, even though I work 3 part time jobs, which comes out to 5-12 hour days and a sixth 4 hour day.

So, I guess, if I didn't have this core belief system, I would probably give up the whole thing as hopeless.

Working Life: Nick

Worker Writing: I've been wondering myself where worker writing might be going. In some definitions I, working as an academic, would seem to have joined the ranks of the middle classes. On the train last night I found an anarchist leaflet which put it clearly for me. The ruling classes own property and the working classes work for them. There wasn't any subdivision. So that's all right then.

In the early days of the Fed (I joined in the 1980's) there was a lot of debate about what the nature of worker writing was (there still is, but the debate is a bit different) centring on a Marxist interpretation that people should be writing social(ist) realism. In fact, very few people wrote according to this formula, something which makes for rather dull literature. There had in fact been some attempts published by Lawrence and Wishart which had communist Party connections in the late 1930s and 1950s, which produced some readable and interesting books, but these tended to have a chapter 10 where the communist figure set out the need for the struggle against capitalism to the naive protagonist. By the end of the book he (for it usually is he) has attained recognition of this need, and is probably organising a strike himself. However what most people in the Fed were reading was genre fiction, thrillers, romances, SF, and had read modern poetry at school, so this is what we were writing, and older generations may have had similar models.

The key thing probably in the Fed is an experience of marginalisation, of writing from the periphery. However, there might be more periphery than centre, and the problem is that the centre dominates culture at the periphery. Thus what you see in the mainstream culture of telly, popular press and literature is a kind of Disneyfication of everything, which reduces and insults and encourages a false consciousness or false perception of the way things are. Although this popular culture may raise issues, it often deals in vague and inconsequential reductive arguments and solutions - which might work at some of the surface levels of need people have for problem solving (for example the use of television soap operas to educate about issues such as drug use, street crime, alcohol abuse, gay issues, euthanasia in the UK) but can never investigate in depth because the audience will 'switch off'. But worker writing can, because it is written by witnesses to the experience, not vicariously. This is a point made in Michel Ragon's history of French proletarian literature, but probably elsewhere too.

Religion and workers issues: The UK is a secular society, but that doesn't mean that some sections of it would regard themselves as secular, thus there are over 2 million Muslims here, for example. There hasn't been a lot of specifically religious writing published by UK Fed groups although you do find the odd poem and story here and there. I've noticed that perhaps religious themes emerge in collections of writing specifically by people from Asian backgrounds a little more frequently than they would in the other writing published by Fed groups, but I wouldn't put a figure on it. On the whole there is a certain suspicion of religion - but I suppose it is best to speak for myself here. In the times when perhaps more Fed members might have considered themselves as Marxists then religion would have been seen as something rather averse to a 'worker writing' but it was something that was tolerated when people read out religious verse as long as the audience did not feel with was being preached at. So it is more a balance of how your spirituality is reflected in your writing, perhaps through what it celebrates, but people might have difficulty if the religious content of a performance of your writing was about advocating one position, one faith, above others.

However, noting the use of writing in enabling people to deal with traumatic events, frequently people will draw on religious themes either as an affirmation of themselves or as a means of making some adjustment to loss. This is something which brings about contradictions. On the one hand spirituality is a valuable asset in enabling people to deal with adversity and be resilient, it can unify and give strength and enable people to have the courage to protect each other or see to the needs of those who most need help; but on the other it is (in my view) highly dangerous because it supports the reactionary and powerful forces of wealth and capitalist government; it has been used to justify colonial expansion and the current very dangerous conflict between the West, Iraq, Iran and Afhganistan - on both sides. It is a tool of mystification and a retreat for ignorance, a mechanism for oppression as much today as throughout history. Have a read of Zola's The Transgression of Abbe Mouret, about the dilemmas of a young priest in a poverty sticken parish in 19th century France.

Nick

This is an interesting issue and also core to some of the origins of the Fed. As you might see in my posting to Brendan, some of the early writing that came out of the Fed or that was around when the Fed started was with schoolchildren. Chris Searle's work began - with the publication of Stepney Words - because when the kids he was teaching started writing about their real lives as opposed to the material they were supposed to submit for schoolwork they were writing with a new depth and vigour. Of course when he published their work he was disciplined. The children organised a strike and he was reinstated.

The point of this was more about giving children a voice, rather than entering into print. Community publishers don't need to have technology necessarily - just time to get their words together and an audience. Performance is very important, and although there have been a lot of publications in the Fed there is probably even more stuff that never found its way into print but which people will have heard through various versions being worked through in writers workshops. A publisher which was also very important in the Fed for many years was Gatehouse - some of the work they did was with teaching English as a second language. A method used would be to get someone to record a story on tape, transcribe it so that they could learn to read it, and the resulting story would be made into a publication.

One of the other important Fed books from the 1970s was Poems by Vivian Usherwood, a disadvantaged 12 year old black boy who wrote poems - and when discovered by his teacher these were put up in the classroom. Other children wanted copies and in the end a duplicated (mimeoed) collection was put together for the class, but demand continued with the result that eventually 10,000 copies of the book had been sold. No mean achievement for any poet.

Melodie

I am going to school on scholarships and grants. Getting books for each
semester sometimes gets pretty hard, depending on the number of books
needed. I have work study and I work ten hours a week. Even though my
husband has been
getting raises at least once a year and we would be considered middle
class, we
still end up going from pay check to pay check.

Eric

My parents were working class but strived and found the money to send all 4 children to a FEE-PAYING school...unusual. This in turn let me join a christian boys club which (particularly the summer camps in the highlands) formed a lot of my core beliefs (though no longer a christian).

But - at school my accent was different from the rest and in the boys club where many of the top schools boys were represented it was even more different. However there was one part of the organisation called the COUNTIES branch (meaning NOT Glasgow, Edinburgh, greenock or Dundee) and there I met fellow soul mates from The Borders and Fife...guys I could really relate to.

Eventually I became one of the leading lights and was able to help effect change - not so much away from the top schools but more to let the organisation be more o! pen and INclusive to let ALL schools be able to participate. Now Girls are also in...

This organisation also influenced the "good dustman" (my dad said the same thing to me, Nick) to desire to go back to full-time education and become a fully qualified Youth & Community worker for over 25 years, eventually giving up due to depression...finding Survivors Poetry Scotland and thus the FED.

It was interesting for me this weekend helping a friend out who has trouble with some glue-sniffers inside his close. I (how shall I say) spoke with them and they moved on BUT this was in the same area where i worked as a voluntary youth worker 40 years ago... and the same problems are still and getting worse....

Schooling: Pat

This is where I make a twit of myself! As Nick P knows, I've always considered my self totally non- political... no that's not right, what I really mean is I don't understand a blee###g thing about it! But here we go... I too lived in (as Nick calls it in his response, public housing) but we termed it differently, to us it was Council Housing, as the words Public housing to me and probably my family also, meant for Posh people, those even posher than people who were buying their own houses. In our area there were neighbours on our row of terraced houses who were buying, they, to me, were people who had better jobs than me Dad, but, people who were rich enough to send their kids to Public School were, to me, like royalty, really rich! So the word Public to me at that time, wasn't sort of linked to (as I know) the general pubic or people, it was a word used by and for posh people. (I know, how sad can you get!)

I went to a Roman Catholic school, which was all divided up, boys couldn't go to the same schools as girls, I used to find that strange, you could play with boys in your street, but mustn't mix with them in school! But at the same time, our girls school was too small, or there were far more girls than boys, whatever, so we had to 'borrow some classrooms on the boys side of the road, we had to use their playground too (at different time though) and were made to play netball with our pleated school uniform skirts tucked inside our knickers, okay if you had on the 'posh' navy-blue (costly - to my family) ones, I often had to go to school in me Mam's flowery ones with a pin to keep them up, but I was still made to tuck me (not quite the correct uniform pleated skirt) into them, the boys could crowd into the corridors of the top floor to have a good 'blimp' (oggle) at the girls, often with the male teachers getting a blimp behind them also.. What I'm trying to say is, even in the State-run (Catholic-run) schools there were class-divides also. I know I was one of the poorest ones, so I was the scruff, the 'thicko', the stupid one who's parents couldn't afford the correct school uniform, I was poor, so, therefore I was stupid, etc. etc. (even the school's head mistress, A Nun, told me so quite often usually when she was giving me 'six of the best' ( a good whacking with a long cane on each of my hands)

There are more issues in the above about how I grew up, (by no fault of my parents, if they had the money when times weren't so lean, they would spend a lot on better food and better, still second-hand but posher, second-had clothing), as well as in my education. There were plenty of kids who went to the same school as me who went on to College and a few to university, but they all came from the homes with parents in better jobs. You may think, what's that got to do with it?, well I can only say what I believe, because I was one of the 'scruffs' I was pushed aside, left at the back, not included in discussions etc in class. If I put my hand up to ask a question one certain teacher would give me a 'withering' look and tell me to put my hand down! When I did get to ask a question I was usually told, "because I said so!" or " don't be stupid girl!" I wasn't the only one, there were quite a few of us. So that kind of thing (class divide - no pun intended!) certainly did 'impinge' on my education.

But to get to the point of your question Steve, I think I realised that my class background affected my education after I became involved with the Fed. and met a lot of people from different backgrounds, and those I met from the 'posher' than me backgrounds treated me as an equal and helped and encouraged me to do what I do today. They have helped me realise, I'm not so stupid, and now I can be myself whenever I meet or talk with people I once considered posh snobs, and many of those I've met through the Fed, are far from snobs!

Anyhow, I shall stop rambling on except to say (to Nick P) I'm still not accidemically (two Cs or one!) up to bloo## anything! But who cares, I don't.

Childhood: Joan

My father's family were Polish refugees of WWI. They lived in an all-Polish neighborhood of a smallish city in the U.S's northern mid-west. My dad was born in 1920, in a little wood frame house that his folks bought sometime before he was born. The house was just 2 doors away from the Catholic Church, and my Polish-born grandmother went to Mass every single morning. They continued the live in that little house until they died in the 1980's. Grampa drove a truck, Grandma worked in a factory, or else, worked in the kitchen of the University.
The other side of the family, however, is of Scots-Irish descent. My mother was intensely proud of her Irish heritage (in contrast with my father's side, who only wanted to assimilate and lose their Polishness). However, I am pretty sure that they were actually Irish Protestant, although I am not completely sure. My mother was an Atheist, and did not permit discussions of religion in the house (yes, and I am almost 50, and still rebelling against her by majoring in Religion & Society).

My mother's side of the family, also, are known for not playing well with others, especially EACH other. When I was born, there was some sort of big fight going on, that only recently, do I think I may have figured out what it was about. I grew up with almost no interaction with any of my relatives.

I believe it was about my "illegitimate" status. My parents did not get married until I was 16. I am ! not sure why they didn't get married. Their excuse was that it was too much trouble, but I think, instead, it may have been because they really weren't sure who my real father was, although they did put my dad's name on the birth-certificate. There is no way to know for sure, because these people of which I speak are all long dead. But there also seemed to be an issue for my father's family that my mother was already twice divorced when my dad came along, and their very conservative brand of Catholicism would not recognize her as eligible for marriage. Who knows, because, again, religion was never a topic of discussion.

But lately I have been thinking that this scandal over my parentage may have been the root cause of my parents persistent poverty. Both of my parents had older siblings. Both of these siblings prospered, while my parents barely survived. Both of my parents were b! orn the same year, and their siblings were born the same year as each other. Part of it could have been the Depression and WWII (my dad was an active combatant), but not every person born in 1920 did as poorly as my folks, so I don't think that was it.

In my dad's case, one could look at it a generational poverty (although his brother became a doctor). My mother's side, though, I think were, at one time, upper middle class. My mother had a Nanny when she was little. That doesn't seem like something an impoverished family would be able to afford.

Whatever the cause, my parents (who were both, BTW, INTENSELY racist and homophobic), never finished High School (I am sorry, I don't know what you call it in the UK), consequently, only barely, once, for a very brief period, scratched the lower-surface of Middle Class before plummeting into a worse situation than before.

When I was growing up, I did quite ! well in school, and my mother was very proud of how well I did in school. The schools I went to always encouraged me towards college, and I always expected to go. I did not find out until my senior year in High School that my mother was completely in opposition to it!

I had applied to a college, was excepted, had a few scholarships (not enough to get me through, but it was a start), and I was trying to get her to help me work some of that big life stuff out. Suddenly she looked at me and said "Just forget it. You are NOT GOING TO COLLEGE! You are going to learn to type and become a SECRETARY!"

I still have no idea why this happened, but it resulted in a HUGE fight in which she evicted me from the house (I was 18, so she could do that). I think she was trying to prove a point by showing me how hard it would be to make it on my own without her, but by the time she invite! d me back, I had gotten married and was working in a factory myself... and I wasn't about to go back. In the family tradition, I don't play well with my family, either.

So, this is why I am now almost 50 and still trying to finish my Bachelors. I always felt that I, somehow, got cheated out of it, and that my life has been much harder than it needed to be because of it.

The strange thing is, somehow I didn't realize that there would be so much of a class difference between me and the other students... age, yes... but not class.

I have to pass up on MANY opportunities here on campus because I either don't have the time, because I have to work so much, or else I don't have the money. For example, I simply cannot take an unpaid internship. I know several people that have taken NUMEROUS unpaid internships. I can't volunteer my time to ANYTHING. I simply MUST be paid, because I have no other source of ! income. I am assuming that people that take these internships get some kind of financial support from their parents. At any rate, I don't.

Joan

Cast of Characters: US Crew: Brendan

My name is Brendan Abel and I am a Junior English and Textual Studies major at Syracuse University. I am quite excited about the opportunities that this forum will provide us. I spent last spring studying abroad with the Semester at Sea program. Traveling by ship, we visited China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, India, Kenya, South Africa, Brazil and Venezuela. Needless to say, it was quite an experience. I am interested in looking at the dominant class structures and the role of reading and writing in many of these places and comparing it to our experiences in the UK and the US.

Cast of Characters: US Crew: Candra

My name is Candra and I am a student at Syracuse University in the States. We are doing a project based on your group and we wanted to get to know your experiences with class and education. This is broad since we are at the beginning stages of our projects so e-mail whatever ideas that come to mind.

Cast of Characters: UK Crew: Rosie

I'm Rosie;

I'm a performer and writer... I use the name Rosie Lugosi when I am performing, hence my email address.

I've been a member/co-organiser/co-ordinator/fundraiser of Manchester Survivors' Poetry for a number of years now. The group is affiliated to the Fed, and to 'Survivors UK', which is an umbrella organisation of Survivor groups around the UK. We define 'Survivor' pretty broadly.. anyone who feels they are a survivor of mental distress, however we might choose to define that.

I've found the Manchester Survivors group incredibly supportive. It has boosted my self-confidence, and I have learned a heck of a lot of skills through my involvement. I am 'out' as a Survivor, and I do a lot of work speaking at conferences and when I am performing to break down the stigma of being a Survivor.

I don't know first-hand what it's like in the USA, but in the UK, there is a lot of prejudice against Survivors - we are seen as incapable, socially inept, self-obsessed, boring, incapable of self-expression... right down the list to 'smelly'.

I've been interested in what has been said already about the issue of writing from a mental health perspective, and the really useful pointers to further reading.. .thanks for that!

One thing I'd like to reflect on is that: yes, I am a Survivor and proud of it! However, not all my writing is directly 'from a mental health perspective'. In Manchester Survivors we encourage ourselves to WRITE. Some choose to write about their mental health experiences all the time... others do not. I guess I'm saying that because ANOTHER of the assumptions made about Survivors is that all we are capable of talking / writing about is our experience of being ill/distressed / etc.

It's a bit like saying that gays only write about being gay, working class people only write about being working class, black people etc etc... and that's all they CAN write about. It can turn into a narrowing of our horizons of self-expression... if we let it.

It's so good being a part of this group. I'm looking forward to it developing!

Cast of Characters: UK Crew: Steve:

My name is Steve, I'm 26 and like Lynn and Tim I'm a member of AB Writers- Stoke On Trent. I've been writing most of my life -
though I don't have much work to show for it- but I think it became a more serious and cathartic exercise in my mid-teens. I tend to write poetry and lately a lot of short one or two page pieces that i like think of as photographs. I do have a couple of novels and at least one play in here somewhere though?
I've read through most of the posts and this is certainly a varied and interesting group to be a part of in what i'm sure future generations will come to think of as an extremely interesting time to be alive. I'm looking forward to getting to know those of you I don't, and to working with all of you. I've posted a recent piece -
one of my photographs- on the files section of the site; feel free to read it and feedback.
Take Care....
SteveO...

Transatlantic Correspondence

As we continue to make progress with through our discussions, we thought it would be helpful to see how our conversation has folded out. Rather than reading all messages in chronological order, I have gone ahead and placed them into several categories. While talking to Tim, we decided it may be helpful to look at our discussion based upon childhood, schooling, working life and a sort of “big picture” that begins to answer the “so what?” question. Our hope is that from this, we can begin to look at our situation not as isolated events but rather a transatlantic struggle and fight.

Brendan