“All of us have thoughts, dreams, fears, secrets, and ideas deep inside of us. Poetry gives us the words to bring them out.”
—A participant in the ASC Creative Writing Workshop
I’ve had the honor of leading ASC’s Creative Writing Workshop since its first meeting on January 27, 2000. Since that time, the group has met weekly to explore poetry as a path to personal growth, community, and connection. The 100 poems presented here span the group’s first decade. While these poems certainly speak for themselves about the workshop’s value and impact, a few highlights from the past 10 years further illustrate the scope of this effort. • More than 475 workshops have been held so far, serving about 300 men and women. Many participants have attended consistently for years, and two of our current members have been with us from the start. • The group has discussed more than 300 poems by over 150 poets, taking inspiration from the Harlem Renaissance; 17th century haiku; the literature of the AIDS epidemic; and many other sources. Participants generated roughly 4,000 poems following these creative explorations. • Situations, the publication you now hold in your hands, launched in 2000 and is now in its 13th edition. The magazine has featured over 800 poems by 125 workshop participants. • In 2005, we developed a Poetry Leadership Program to enable participants to run some of the Creative Writing Workshops on their own. We have trained 12 Poetry Leaders who have led upwards of 100 workshops.
• For many, this workshop has been a catalyst for intensive literary undertakings. One participant has written over 5,000 haiku since learning about this poetic form in our workshop. Another turns in a new batch of poems each week, and has produced over 200 poems in the past two years. Several participants perform their work at the Bowery Poetry Club and other venues. One group member has written a memoir, while another is working on his first poetry manuscript. • The workshop’s reach extends well beyond the bright and sunny room at ASC where our weekly gatherings occur. Over the years, our group has been invited to do at least 10 public readings at three Barnes & Noble bookstores in Manhattan, reaching large and enthusiastic audiences. And thousands learned about our work when “My Life In Verse,” a documentary about the workshop, aired on the Showtime Network on World AIDS Day 2004. As a lifelong practitioner of poetry, I’ve had the good fortune of teaching poetry workshops in many settings over the years. Leading ASC’s Creative Writing Workshop has been the most rewarding of these experiences by far. As you read these superb poems, I think you’ll see why.
Gerry Gomez Pearlberg Workshop Facilitator
Situations 5
