Kate Valk
I am advocating on behalf of the writing collective Still Waters in a Storm, a fellowship of children and grown-ups, primarily from low-income families, in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Stephen Haff is the crusader, teacher and mentor who founded and directs Still Waters, and he has been an associate of mine through The Wooster Group for over fifteen years. He has even directed plays performed at our theater in SoHo, The Performing Garage, with his students from Bushwick High School. He is well known in the Bushwick community from being a public school English teacher for many years. He started Sill Waters in response to an overwhelming need for the young people in the community to have a safe haven after school, a place where they can put their creative energies toward positive ends.
The weekly, large group dynamic is defined by who attends the session, which lasts over four hours. The group gathers around pizza, and a social period ensues. Then the task is set for each person, for the next hour or so, to sit with pen and pad and write–to write whatever comes to them, sometimes a continuation of a story they’ve been working on, sometimes an impromptu encounter of pen and page. Then, when the group consciousness decides the writing time is up, each person reads aloud what they have written, everyone listens, and the group discusses what they have heard.
I have attended several Saturday sessions and have been amazed at how this group functions: as a therapeutic family, a one-room schoolhouse. This kind of liberty is not often afforded in the lives of the young people involved. Theirs is a neighborhood not normally conducive to quiet self-examination and artistic creation. The writing group has become a real destination for these young people as an outlet of expression–their numbers are increasing with every session–and a place to shape a set of positive values.
Still Waters’ unique and restorative approach to group writing helps young people find their own voices. It provides them space and time for peace and creative release, and it serves as a supplement to the regular classroom–which often proves deficient in even more ways than their education as readers and writers. With funding, Still Waters can continue its devotion to the community through its expanded programming and continuing commitment to the lives of young people.
Sincerely,