Recollection

It’s been something—this year of 2020: the pandemic, the quarantine, the killing of George Floyd and the ensuing protests, the wildfires currently occurring up and down the west coast, the looming November election . . . It’s been a year of great challenges, and a year of hope for true and lasting change.  How will this year—and how will we—be remembered?  In this episode, Matt and Alvin read pieces circling the theme of remembrance, written before and during the Covid-19 pandemic.  Additionally, they share a summary overview of the situation for Underground Writing, as well as program updates, forthcoming projects, and great news about a just-announced grant.

LINKS OF INTEREST:

'Last Will and Testament' – Sherman Alexie  

'No Many of Them, It's True' – Gregory Orr (part of the “The World Has Need of You” collection)

'Orpheus and Eurydice: A Lyric Sequence' – Gregory Orr

'Poetry as Survival' – Gregory Orr

'Orpheus, Eurydice, Hermes' - Rainer Maria Rilke (translated by Steven Mitchell)

Hope in These Times:  e-deliverable writing worksheet

Underground Writing’s active writing workshops:

Mount Vernon Migrant Leaders Club in the Mount Vernon School District

Skagit County Community Justice Center

Skagit County Juvenile Detention

Skagit Valley Recovery Site (hosted by Brigid Collins)

YMCA Oasis Daylight Center

The Change list of suggested books 

Long Way Down - Jason Reynolds

I'm Still Here: Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness - Austin Channing Brown

The Vintage Hughes - Langston Hughes

Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison

The Winter of Our Discontent - John Steinbeck

Letters to a Young Inmate is in the home stretch, launching later 2020

Academy of American Poets

Community of American Magazines and Presses

National Book Foundation

COVID 19 pandemic

PNW wildfire smoke

Underground Writing: a literature-based creative writing program serving migrant, incarcerated, recovery, and other at-risk communities in northern Washington through literacy and personal transformation.

What No One Ever Tells You

This episode features writing from our Juvenile Detention and YMCA Oasis Daylight Center sites. Matt Malyon and producer Alvin Shim discuss how the writings engage with and expand the title of What No One Ever Tells You, our first anthology of student writing. The book will be released in December 2018 and is supported in part by a grant from the Washington State Arts Commission.

Note: We are a creative writing program serving at-risk populations. We do not broadcast names or identifying details of the students we work with.

Links of Interest:

What No One Ever Tells You
Skagit County Juvenile Detention  
YMCA Oasis Daylight Center  
Nathan McGehee, Artist & Designer
Washington State Arts Commission