Table Of ContentPraise for Writing with At-Risk Youth
“Richard Gold’s creativity, compassion, and empathy, coupled with his
deep sense of the integrity of the human spirit, has allowed healing and
restorative expressions to flow from adolescents who have experienced
profound emotional traumas. The Pongo Method is essentially a way for
these young people—many with severe emotional problems and some who
have been ensnared in the juvenile justice system—to learn to communicate
and think about their life experience through poetry and storytelling. Many
are able to reframe horrific experiences and put some closure around ‘is-
sues’ that they have held back from feeling and thinking about. Although
the Pongo ‘process’ is not therapy in a traditional sense, it represents the
essential elements of the most effective treatments and does this through a
modality that youth can engage in with honesty and trust.” —Eric Trupin,
PhD, professor and vice chair in the Department of Psychiatry and Behav-
ioral Sciences, University of Washington School of Medicine; professor and
director of Division of Public and Behavioral Health; director of Evidence
Based Practice Institute, Seattle, Washington
“For even the seasoned teacher, working with traumatized children can be
intimidating. Writing with At-Risk Youth: The Pongo Teen Writing Method
not only inspires teachers to help these youth write poetry but also provides
clear instructions on how to facilitate the work—all while taking care of
these children. It proves an essential tool for anyone with the heart to take
on this important vocation.” —Teri Hein, executive director, 826 Seattle,
Seattle, Washington
“Writing with At-Risk Youth is a step-by-step guide in understanding the
minds of at-risk youth. By following a carefully planned writing program, the
guide helps the instructor liberate youth from past trauma. The road to re-
covery is bumpy, but this guide can make their journey smoother.” —Charles
Shelan, CEO, Community Youth Services, Olympia, Washington
“I have had the pleasure of working with and learning from Gold, with his
remarkably creative and effective method, in our work together with incar-
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cerated youth and adults. He is a superb clinician and teacher, and I recom-
mend this unique book, Writing with At-Risk Youth, to anyone who chooses
to work with this underserved population.” —E. K. Rynearson, MD, clinical
professor of psychiatry, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle,
Washington
“For many years as an incarcerated youth, writing was my principal method
of venting in a highly constrained and rule-governed environment, and now
as an adult working with incarcerated youth it is more clear to me than ever
how powerful a tool writing can be for youth going through that experience.
. . . By the time I reached the end of the book I was convinced of the poten-
tial for empowerment that can come from Writing with At-Risk Youth. That
marvelous poetry is there locked inside these troubled youth; the method
is clearly effective in helping them bring it to the world.” —Starcia Ague,
program coordinator, University of Washington, Division of Public Behavioral
Health and Justice Policy, Seattle, Washington
“In Writing with At-Risk Youth, Gold takes on the incredible task of demysti-
fying the teaching of poetry for at-risk youth. The book is a straightforward,
beautiful, and heartfelt how-to for educators of any age . . . and a testament to
the compassionate tools Gold employs in his own teaching approach, as well
as the tenderness he feels toward emotionally troubled youth.” —Pat Graney,
founder, Keeping the Faith/The Prison Project, Seattle, Washington
“‘[T]he world of Pongo poetry,’ writes author Richard Gold, ‘is about . . .
tuning into an underground river of unarticulated emotion, that rumbles
and roars just beneath the surface of our world. We can feel it through the
soles of our feet, when we attend to it, and it shakes us.’ In these pages Gold
carries the reader deftly into this subterranean realm, in which carefully
crafted expressive writing provides soundings from the hearts of troubled
teens who are helped to write with startling depth and honesty. By following
the Pongo model, writing mentors and counselors can help young people
hear and share their own emotional truths, and participate in the seismic
shifts they foster.” —Robert A. Neimeyer, PhD, editor of Grief and the
Expressive Arts: Practices for Creating Meaning; professor, University of
Memphis, Memphis, Tennessee
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“Writing with At-Risk Youth makes a wonderful contribution to our collec-
tive response to youth affected by trauma and hardship. Facing up to trauma
experiences and developing a new narrative is proven to work for recovery.
Expressive writing is an amazingly powerful method of doing just that. This
book helps youth to find their voice, learn their strengths, and give themselves
hope for their future.” —Lucy Berliner, MSW; director, Harborview Center
for Sexual Assault and Traumatic Stress; clinical associate professor, Univer-
sity of Washington School of Social Work and Department of Psychiatry and
Behavioral Sciences, Seattle, Washington
“Writing with At-Risk Youth collects Gold’s more than twenty years spent
working with troubled youth. In it I hear his voice and everything he told me
when I volunteered for him as a writing mentor in Seattle’s juvenile detention.
This book is a clear guide on how to apply his expressive writing methods in
any setting, but his thoughts and stories about the work remind us how trans-
formational it can be for young people who need this empowerment the most.
For my own trauma-serving poetry project in Sacramento, founded with Gold’s
guidance, this book will be required reading for all of my future poet mentors.”
—Alex Russell, founder, Real Poets Writing Project, Sacramento, California
“Sadly, the juvenile justice system has become the dumping ground for youth
who have mental health issues or a history of trauma or both. All incarcerated
youth are suffering. That suffering will find expression: positive or negative.
Writing with At-Risk Youth is a user-friendly book that offers a pro-social,
holistic, and low-cost solution.” — Will Harrell, ombudsman, Youth Studies
Center (detention center), New Orleans, Louisiana
“On its surface Writing with At-Risk Youth: The Pongo Teen Writing Method
is a how-to manual for designing and delivering a program that uses poetry
to draw out, expose, and confront its young authors’ demons, and open the
path to their redemption. Through their profoundly moving poems and the
heartbreaking backstories that Gold tells, you find yourself walking alongside
these young poets, sharing their pain, informed by their revelations, and
inspired by their resiliency. You soon realize, this book is much more than
just an instructional guide. It’s an homage to poetry itself and a testament to
its healing power.” —David Nollman, program coordinator, Club Z In-Home
Tutoring, Boston, Massachusetts
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Writing with
At-Risk Youth
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Editorial Review Board
It’s Easy to W.R.I.T.E. Expressive Writing Series
Kathleen Adams MA, LPC
Series Editor
President/CEO, Center for Journal Therapy, Inc.
Denver, Colorado
Peggy Osna Heller, Ph.D., LCSW, PTR
Clinical poetry therapist and psychotherapist
Potomac, Maryland
Linda Barnes, MA, CAPF, CJT
President, National Federation of Biblio/Poetry Therapy
Retired college guidance counselor
Medford, Oregon
Kate Thompson, MA, CJT
Registered psychotherapist and certified journal therapist
Boulder, Colorado
Also in the It’s Easy to W.R.I.T.E. Expressive Writing Series
Expressive Writing: Foundations of Practice
Edited by Kathleen Adams
The Flourishing Principal: Strategies for Self-Renewal
Kathleen Adams and Rosemary Lohndorf
The Teacher’s Journal: A Workbook for Self-Discovery
Kathleen Adams and Marisé Barreiro
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Writing with
At-Risk Youth
The Pongo Teen
Writing Method
RICHARD GOLD
Rowman & Littlefield Education
A Division of
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD
Lanham • Boulder • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK
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Published by Rowman & Littlefield Education
A division of Rowman & Littlefield
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
www.rowman.com
10 Thornbury Road, Plymouth PL6 7PP, United Kingdom
Copyright © 2014 by Richard Gold
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any
electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems,
without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote
passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gold, Richard, 1948–
Writing with at-risk youth : the Pongo teen writing method / Richard Gold.
pages cm. — (It’s easy to W.R.I.T.E expressive writing series)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-4758-0283-2 (cloth : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-1-4758-0284-9 (pbk. : alk.
paper)— ISBN 978-1-4758-0285-6 (electronic)
1. Teenagers with social disabilities—Education. 2. Creative writing (Secondary
education). I. Title.
LC4085.G65 2014
371.826'94—dc23 2013044051
™
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for
Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America
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Contents
Series Overview: About the It’s Easy to W.R.I.T.E.
Expressive Writing Series vii
Foreword xi
Preface xv
1 Childhood Trauma and the Benefits of Writing 1
2 Pongo, Openness, and a Unique Joy 15
3 The Special Role of the Writing Mentor 29
4 Poetry as the Expressive Medium 39
5 The Pongo Approach to Teaching Poetry 49
6 A Model Pongo Writing Project 65
7 Keeping Everyone Safe 71
8 Introducing Poetry to Youth 79
9 Overview of the One-on-One Process 87
10 Taking Dictation 95
11 Improvising Poetic Structures 107
v
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