We enlisted the help of Michael Rudd for this project, as he'd expressed interest in doing this kind of thing before and has the right mixture of experience and skills, having worked with youth a lot already. We've been trying to work together for ages, but the fates always conspired against us. This time though, everything lined up perfectly, and Michael was in.
So, Dan, Christian, Shane & I, joined by Michael set about the task of workshopping with a dozen young dudes, all under 19, all in remand, for who-knows-what or how long.
We rocked along for an acclimatisation tour a few weeks back. The new prison has no bars, except for in the elevators, which totally take you back to Silence of the Lambs. People are constantly watching from the Master Control Room. You pause at each heavy, blue door and await the click. Pass through the second metal detector. The room we are to use for the workshops looks exactly like any other classroom. Only there's nothing sharp anywhere.
On Wednesday, Christian, Michael and I turned up at 8:30 am to set up for the first workshop. We talked about what poetry was, found out that quite a few of these guys already wrote songs and raps, and took them through a bunch of exercises to generate some material. By the end of the day, most of them were pretty into the idea and had produced the beginnings of their pieces, and in some cases had already written their entire poem. We gave the officers some pencils and paper to pass on to the guys so they could work on their poems overnight, and wished them all luck.
It was a full on session, but really, not that much different from how I remember some of my high-school classes in Kaitaia to be like. On the whole they were stoked to be out of their typical drudgery, and many seemed to have things on their minds that they wished to communicate - they were missing their families, missing the birth of their children, watching people leaving them. And others were struggling to put up a front. That day, people read some really moving poetry. And on the whole it went down well. But occasionally they'd all laugh at something they deemed 'soft' I suppose, and you could see the person who'd shared clamping up. But there was freedom there too, in the invitation to express themselves.
It's an inspiring experience. There's the shy white kid who keeps to himself. The others make fun of him some times. He is sensitive, like an open wound. There's the tough white dude, he's into Serge Tankian, he sings in a band and he writes a poem about having his heart broken by a girl. This draws laughter. There's the loud-mouthed Maori boy, clown-of-the-class, but he's a good guy underneath it in a lot of ways, he keeps things moving. He writes his poem straight away, it was just waiting to come out. He's keen, bright eyed like a magpie. Oh and the twins, the twins from the North, (more than half of them from up that way though), missing their family and drawing their tomoko, beautiful spirals while they are thinking. And then Maori Elvis, the most beautiful young man, with a shyness, reigning himself back always. He won't write, but draws pattern after pattern and aims it at the bin in the corner. But he looks like he wants to, you know?
On the second day we arrive to find out that they were not given their pencils and paper to take their cells. That means that only the prisoners who were already allowed writing implements were able to work on their poems last night. We are two people less today, because they had court cases. So we are down to 10. Some people have composed things in their heads, others have written entire pieces. Some people have written new pieces. I can't help but notice that these are much tougher than the pieces I heard yesterday, and this is sad in a way, but I understand. We are asking them to bare this stuff to their entire unit tomorrow. And there are other dynamics to consider.
We split the room up, Michael and I work with the people who still need to write the words for their final piece, what's come to be called their 'represent' piece. Shane works with those people who have already written their poems and goes through some performance techniques. By the end of the day everyone except for two people have poems written - one has his composed in his head, he says, and the other says 'he can't write poetry'. We do a round where everyone shares, practicing their delivery - and they have depth to them. These are not just write-offs, though they know that's what people think of them. They all care for someone. Today we spend time with individuals. We find out bits of their stories, what they care for, what they are sad about, what makes them angry.
On day three we all go - Christian, Shane, Michael, Daniel, & I. We spend an hour with the class, now down to 9, refining poems (they were allowed pencils last night though, so that was good), and doing a practice round. The class nominates our class clown as MC and he thrives under the role, whipping everyone into shape and running the whole show.
And then we go into the gym, which is just a big empty concrete room with a basketball hoop at one end. The other half of their unit attends as the audience, and the head of prison programmes rocks along to see what we came out with. The guys all jump up and perform or read their poems - and it's good. One guy is really shy, so I perform with him, we do a line each. And the twins incorporate guitar, and then one of them improvs with Michael Rudd as he makes up a poem that takes everyone on a journey down past Taupo. The guy who only moments ago was refusing to read to his class, jumps up and rocks out a mean performance, moving around, gesturing, varying his voice. Once all the guys have performed, The Literatti jump up and do our thang. We finished off with me and Shane reading out a poem we wrote during the writing workshop, using only things that the inmates said.
And then we all ate cake together and drank fizzy drink - their reward for doing the class and performance. And now we just get to hang out with everyone. I wander the hall, shaking everyone's hand and thanking them for their effort. Everyone in the class had their own talent that shone through during the last three days, and I want to make sure that every one of them knows that I saw it. Some of them sign and give me their poetry to keep. I talk to the shy guy I read a poem with. He is saving his lemonade. He says he hasn't drunk fizzy drink for 8 months; you can hear him savouring his first sip, which hasn't come yet, in his mind. As they all line up to go back to their cells I want to say something else, but I do not. The guards make shy-guy throw his unopened lemonade in the bin. Christian and I are distraught - he didn't even get to taste it, oh and he wanted it so bad. Our MC for the day calls out over the cacophony, 'Thank you for everything, poets!" and with that, and a bit of shuffling, they're gone.
It was only a couple of hours a day for three days, but I will remember these dudes for a long time to come. I think we all will. They remind me that there is good in us all, even the people who we have wrapped up in violent stereotypes. And I wish I could know what will come of them.
They tell the Programmes Manager that they want to do it every day though. This is good feedback. And we'll now be making this a regular thing - every quarter, we'll rock along and open another group of 12 up to poetry as way to have a voice and express it.
All in all, a hugely inspiring, enriching experience for us all. There's bound to be poetry that comes from it.
On another note - we've just tentatively booked our venues and dates for the outcome of the Ghosts Project - a show called Echoing The Ghosts - and I am sitting here looking at the product of our photo-shoot last week - looking good!
More updates to come, so so much has been happening.
2 comments:
Awesome work, guys. Awesome!
Wow! What an amazing and worthwhile thing for you guys to have done! Fantastic.
Post a Comment