Reboot | Ode to My Journal

The Underground Writing Podcast is an audio channel focusing on student writing. Flowing in and through this river, as it were, are interviews, guests, and organizational updates, as well as two smaller tributaries: Linebreak (a single piece of writing) and Kite (our student writing audio zine).

On this first episode of Season 5, we talk about the reboot of The Underground Writing Podcast. Highlights include a catchup / overview coming out of the Covid era, a few updates regarding programs and collaborations, and a reading of "Ode to My Journal," a poem by Anthony, one of our students at our writing workshop site in Skagit County Juvenile Detention.

Show Notes:

Today’s featured writing is “Ode to My Journal” by Anthony, a student at our writing workshop site in Skagit County Juvenile Detention. You can support Anthony, and students like him, by spreading the word about our podcast, purchasing student writing anthologies and other merch in our online store, and making a donation to help our work continue – you can donate via our website’s secure donation portal here: https://undergroundwriting.org/donate

Our website: www.undergroundwriting.org

You can send inquiries, or pitches for advertising, here: podcast@undergroundwriting.org

Learn more about the Letters to a Young Inmate initiative via our website here: www.letterstoayounginmate.org

The Sentences That Create Us: Crafting a Writer’s Life in Prison is a wonderful resource, Edited by Caits Meissner (a member of our Advisory Board). You can learn more about this book online here: https://pen.org/program/the-sentences-that-create-us/

More about our re/vision program can be accessed via our website here: www.undergroundwriting.org/revision

Podcast Review, a Los Angeles Review of Books channel, published an article in April 2024 about top writing podcasts, and included us in the list for a third time. We’re beyond grateful to be included amongst such company. You can read Alice Florence Orr’s article online here: https://podcastreview.org/list/best-writing-podcasts/

We’re repeating ourselves, but it’s good to say again . . . Listeners!—You can also help us by writing a review on Apple Podcasts or other outlets. And something new—we may even read some of them on the air. Podcast reviews help other like-minded folks find out about our show, as well as our broader work. Any help you can lend to this effort would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for listening, Friends. 

Safe journey, and take good care.

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.