Writers Room Retrospective: 2014-2021

A Writers Room Retrospective: 2014 - 2021

The Story So Far

Special thanks to— Drexel University’s College of Arts and Sciences, Office of the Provost, and Office of the President for their continued support.

Canon for supporting TRIPOD, our intergenerational writing and photography project, since its inception in 2017.

The Philadelphia Cultural Fund. Their support allows us to further our creative work for the good of our community and for all Philadelphians.

TD Charitable Foundation for supporting a three-year series of public programming to develop our arts-centered model of co-living.

AmeriCorps for sponsoring Anti-displacement: The Untapped Potential of University-Community Cooperative Living, a Community-led Participatory Action Research study investigating the landscape of residential displacement and affordable housing options in West Philadelphia.

The Barra Foundation for supporting the pilot phase of Second Story Collective, our intergenerational co-living model that leverages the arts to spark community cohesion, neighborhood stability, and economic mobility.

A Writers Room Retrospective: 2014 - 2021

The Story So Far

Since 2014, Writers Room has worked to bring residents of West Philadelphia and Drexel into productive conversation, using story to encourage honest dialogue and spur the actions required to create a more equitable world. Core to our work has been the co-creation of deep and authentic relationships across what might seem like significant differences.

This collection features works from community members and leaders, Drexel students and faculty, and students from Robeson High School and YouthBuild Philadelphia. All were written as part of Writers Room’s classes, workshops, and special events during the past seven years.

In creating these pieces, we have created a home together. We invite you to join us as we begin piloting Second Story Collective, an intergenerational co-housing network of older homeowners and student homesharers engaged in storytelling and the shared creation of community.

©2021 Editor: Valerie Fox Editorial Assistant: Susan Nyberg Book Designer: Patty West All rights remain with authors and artists.

CONTENTS

Dusky Rose-Colored Rocking Chair, Carol Richardson McCullough 6 Before I Die

, Johngeline Ferguson 7

Response Essay: Buck, Normon Cain 8-9 Excerpts from “The Pursuit of Mindfulness,” Lauren Altman 10 Writing About Each Other, Ali and Knowledge, from Mighty Writers 12 Artifact #4, Natasha Hajo 13 The Red Line, Rosalyn Cliett 14 Pool/Swim Club: A Pencil Illustration, CP Rogers 15 Zora, I Adore Ya, Carol Richardson McCullough 16 Questions 4 Zora, Drexel Anthropology students 17-18 From Spark to Inferno, Norman Cain 19 Anaïs Nin, Hollywood, 1959, Jordan McCullough 20 At a Crossroads, Brenda Bailey 21 Dear Memory, Christine Nieman 22-23 Baby Dolls, Elizabeth Abrams 24

Retrospective / 5

CONTENTS

On Tripod, Kyle Howey and Natasha Hajo 25 Dear Basketball, Mark Dawkins 26 Conversation at Laurel Hill, Devin Welsh 27-28 Homebuild Workshop, George Jenkins 29-33 Design Workshop, Uk Jung 34-39 How We Forget, Alex Wasalinko 40 Hopeless Philly Boy, Dejah McIntosh 41 Fragmented Man, Norman Cain 42 Untitled, Nathalie Goykhman 43 Fine Dining and Botanical Illustrations, Briyanna Hymms 44-49 Salt, Sarah Velcofsky 50 We Contain Multitudes, TRIPOD 51-63 Neighborhood Histories Roundtable Highlights, Scott Knowles, Helma Weeks, De’Wayne Drummond, Gwen Morris 64-71 Postcard from Home Symposium, Rebecca Arthur 72

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CONTENTS

Home & Creatures, Kyle Howey and Kelly McQuain 73 Grandmoms, Patricia Burton 74-75 Union Transfer, Cosmo Randazzo 76 Push, Anjelikal Rogers 77 Idly By, Kyle Howey 78 Acceptin Christ, Chanda Rice 79 Cause and Effect, Victoria Huggins Peurifoy 80 Because I Am Three-Quarters Gone, Carol Richardson McCullough and Kirsten Kaschock 81 On Pause, Mallika Kodagavanti, Earl Hackett, Jasmine James, Rachel Wenrick, Patrice Worthy 82-84 Imagery from Anthology 7: Zoom Portraits 85-86

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Dusky Rose-Colored Rocking Chair Carol Richardson McCullough

I am in the living room of my childhood, at the white house on the corner of Walnut and Locust, on the hilltop. It’s early evening in the springtime and the soft light gets ready to hide but graces us with its entry through our windows just a little while longer. The air temperature is pleasantly warm, so our house is not too hot, yet. And the smell of honeysuckle is drifting down from the neighbor’s shrubs just up the street, wafting a sweet wave of warmth.

I am standing right behind my mother, who is seated in her dusky rose-colored rocking

chair. In the distance I hear dogs barking and kids still getting their last moments of playtime outside. There’s an occasional car turning the corner, either headed further up the hill or descending into the city. But the main thing is my mother, who has let me brush her hair while she tells me about, oh I don’t know, a story from her childhood in the house across the street.

Usually I sit in the f loor at her feet between her knees and she combs my hair, first

undoing the old work, gently combing through and brushing in just a dab of sweet smelling Dixie Peach to keep the edges tame. Then she parts and plaits it all together into a design of three—one to the top left side with two in the back, sometimes with bows at the ends to dress me up with a little style.

But this time I stand behind her and take the brush and play beautician with her hair. It’s

thick, and cut into a sort of a bob, I guess, with curls. She lets me run the brush from the roots to the ends in a kid’s interpretation of a style. The clock on the mantel tic-tock-tics, marking the passage of time.

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Before I Die Johngeline Ferguson

Wearing a life jacket sitting beside others that want to be part of kissing a whale, we don’t mind being cramped tightly together on the rear end of the rowboat attached to the large ferry. We are drifting on the tides, which are low. We smell the salt in the deep blue waters of the ocean.

We have been waiting for the whales to surface since dawn and now its morning and the sun is shining brightly in the blue sky. The clouds have separated to allow the sun to come out as the dimness of the dawn slowly disappears… It is the perfect Spring day for this whale kissing outing.

Warm and crisp breezes of air. It’s gotta be about 65 degrees out here in the middle of the ocean.

I’m glad that my brother Eric came along with me because he too always wanted to kiss a whale.

I am sitting on this rowboat beside my brother, drifting on the gentle tides of the ocean waters, waiting patiently. Looking in front of me I don’t believe it I see a mother whale and her calf… Eric tells me, “You have your chance. Take it.” I kiss the mother whale and her calf. Eric is smiling at me and giving me a thumbs up. Behind me, I see a multitude of whales coming toward the rowboat we’re in. The ocean water is beneath us. We are grateful because it keeps us f loating. We are just drifting… looking up, I smile at the brightness of the sun.

Retrospective / 9

Response Essay: Buck Norman Cain

MK Asante’s memoir, Buck, is a riveting, rhythmic, prosy, hip hop laced coming of age narrative that captures his young adult years on the mean streets of Philadelphia. Additionally, the Memoir captures his candid memories of a dysfunctional family and how he discovered his writer’s voice and self-worth as an alternative high school student in the wealthy Chestnut Hill section of Philadelphia.

While the derogatory definition of Buck describes a highly adventurous young Black

man who is prone to anti-social activities, the term can also convey sentiments of endearment.

In Afro America, ‘Buck’, can be preceded by a variety of adjectives, among them: young, town, make and wild.

Throughout his memoir, Asante illustrates how the preceding adjectives used to describe

Buck were a part of his life. As a young buck, he is the leader of a group of boys who are prone to violent behavior. Once he blew up a car. Metaphorical Buck towns mentioned in his memoir are Broad and Olney, Erie and Girard respectively.

These are the intersections that are rife with underworld activities; these are the

intersections that he frequented; these are the intersections where he sold drugs, solicited sex and employed an unsavory lifestyle. His non-conformist behavior is not only confined to the aforementioned intersections of Philadelphia, they extend to a variety of other areas of the city as well. His life becomes being a disciple of buck wildness and making bucks.

The turning point in Asante’s life arrives when he becomes a student at the non-

traditional Crefeld School in the aff luent Chestnut Hill section of Philadelphia. There he finds solace, becomes acquainted with Kerouac, Whitman, Hurston, Baldwin, Ginsberg and other authors whose philosophies, love of adventure and quest for truth matched his mindset. He decides that he wants to become a writer; however, his wild buck ways still persisted.

His best friend is killed, perhaps by the same drug dealers that he owes $3,000 to.

It was at this point that his interests begin to change. He becomes interested in hip hop and poetry, performs at an underground spoken word venue that feature upcoming stars like poet Ursula Rucker, the poet/singer Jill Scott, and the world-renowned band the Roots. This was his beginning of a productive life.

Retrospective / 10

I feel that Asante initially experienced a misguided existence because his family was

dysfunctional. His father, a world-renowned Afro American scholar, was absent. His mother suffered from suicidal notions. His brother, who was his mentor, was in jail. His sister was in multiple mental institutions. Asante did not have guidance; therefore, he had no sense of purpose until he enrolled in the Crefeld School.

To the dismay of peers and family, in my youth, I have been what is known as a wild

buck. During that period my life was, to use the vernacular, “in the street.” Moving helter skelter into its ravine of Bacchanal I did not make the fatal mistake of not returning to so-called normalcy. Luckily, I knew how far to take my “buck wildness.” Eventually, I was employed by several agencies that dealt with troubled youth: young bucks. My street and professional experiences have allowed me to have an appreciation of Asante’s book.

Work Cited: Asante, MK. Buck. New York: Random House Publishing Group, 2013. Print.

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From “The Pursuit of Mindfulness” Lauren Altman

Identity “I feel like I am more myself now than I was at the beginning of this trip.” Leah and I emphatically agreed with Dave’s honest admission. We had finished our decadent hummus dishes and were content to spend our last few hours in Tel Aviv on this beautiful restaurant patio surrounded by trellises of bright pink roses. I took another soothing sip of my fresh mint tea—a tall clear glass filled with hot water and a long sprig of mint. In fewer than twelve hours we would be boarding a plane to head back to the States, just in time for Christmas. I looked up at the cloudless blue sky and confessed to the two of them, “On this trip, I didn’t feel like I had to be anyone but myself. I was present.”

Monster Island We paddled a hard left and pulled up to an open pallet. We waded through the shallow water. We pulled and pushed the canoe into place. We ran barefoot through the trees, inventing mystical creatures hiding in the bushes. I coaxed the shy ones out of their hiding places, and Daniel protected us from the fire-breathing pterodactyls overhead. Once we tired out, we hopped back in the canoe and paddled home to our private little beach. When we got back, Mom had tuna sandwiches ready for us to chomp down.

Light As we walked through Mount Hertzel cemetery, which held the bodies of young Israeli soldiers, Dor turned his face to the sun and professed, “The sun is so energizing.” I smiled, closed my eyes, turned my face up to that fiery ball and hummed in agreement “mmhmm.” Even in the most mournful of places, Dor found a silver lining.

As I walk down Lancaster Walk on a bitterly cold January morning, the wind ceases. Suddenly, my cheeks no longer feel ripped and raw; warmth washes over them. I turn my face up to the sun, noticing for the first time that the sky is blue and cloudless. I think back to that day at the cemetery, and hum my gratitude toward the energizing sun.

Retrospective / 12

Blueberries Blueberry bushes lined the pathway from our cabin to our dock on the lake. Every August, our small pink fingers reached up towards those plump, round berries, dangling on their frail green branches, waiting to be plucked. Once all the blueberries within our reach were collected into our bowls, Dad lifted us up, and our whole perspective changed. Lush green leaves suddenly surrounded my face—instead of dried yellow stalks—and I could pluck twice as many berries; I could reach the ones that the deer hadn’t beaten us to. Every few summers, Daniel and I tried a green blueberry, even though we knew they weren’t ripe yet, just to taste that bitter tanginess again and to giggle at each other’s sour face.

I can picture myself out on that dock at Poppop’s lake house, performing sun salutations and drinking tea. On the dock where Poppop taught Daniel and me how to fish when we were four years old. At the lake house which Poppop recently handed down to Dad and Aunt Andie. The lake house which I will one day beg my father to hand down to me.

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Writing About Each Other Ali, Knowledge

Ali Sometimes adults stereotype youth and get it mostly wrong. But they see us, read us, and can put it in a rap song. Like brother Knowledge, even though he doesn’t like to write, he has a lyrical insight. Like brother Josh, as quiet as a mouse, but sly and analytical like a fox in a henhouse.

Knowledge Mr. Ali looks like he from the South and if he talk back to his mom he’d get smacked in his mouth.

Born in an era of rap he would fight the power carry his beat box and pick his fro every hour.

As he grew up he got some class he got an interest in some jazz.

He did love rap life long until he heard some Louis Armstrong I’m done.

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The Red Line Rosalyn Cliett

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Artifact #4 Natasha Hajo

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Pool/Swim Club: A Pencil Illustration C.P. Rogers

Bright, bright, bright beautiful sunny days sounds of laughter and playing and music blue water blending with blue sky pool deck, pool gutter, diving boards L-shape of pool with f loating rope divider, black lines painted on the bottom of the pool, lifeguard stands accurate and truthful and tell me how could a pool with two diving boards give so much life to an entire town and so many individuals? what is invisible is the community of adults and children who came together here to form teams and friendships and play groups; to teach and to learn swimming skills, dances, games and the pool rules and to celebrate holidays and accomplishments some of the lines are the edges of the pool, the pool deck and the grassy areas within the pool are lines dividing the swimming area from the diving well and the lines dividing the swimming lanes now, the pool has been filled in, there is no more swim club.

It is a dark spot in the town.

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Zora, I Adore Ya Carol Richardson McCullough

Dear Zora, My father was the one who created in me the desire to learn to read as a very young child, and he introduced me to the joy that could come from immersing myself in a story contained within the pages of a book. But he never really read books for himself. He was a coach – a sports aficionado – so that was how he spent his free time.

During one particular summer I commuted between Charleston, West Virginia, where I lived and Huntington, the nearby city where I was taking a grad lit class at Marshall University. I would arrive home after the drive and put my books onto the dining room table, grab a snack, take a break, and then return to begin my studies. One day as I got ready to read, I noticed my book was not there. I went to ask my dad if he had seen it, and low and behold, I found him seated out on our porch, reading my copy of Their Eyes Were Watching God. Later on the book reappeared on the corner of the table.

The next day it happened again, so I asked him, “How do you like that book you’re reading?”

And he said, “That Janie is a pistol.” He also picked up on the famous line about the Black woman being “the mule of the world.”

So I thought, “Daddy is really getting into this book.” I think he found ease in reading the vernacular dialect of the characters, as their speech most likely reminded him of the way the people in the community of his southern boyhood home in Lexington, Virginia sounded in the 1920’s when he was a child.

You gave me a moment where, for the first time, I, the daughter studying to become an English teacher, was able to offer my father a book and watch him enjoy it, as he had done for me when I was a little girl. You had captured him with your language. For me though, it was the characterization of Janie’s life journey, finding a love that would not stif le her but would welcome expression and provide an everlasting joy.

Reading your book was like we had both just unwrapped a special gift. For that dear Zora, I adore ya.

With love of the literary kind, Carol Richardson McCullough Retrospective / 18

Questions 4 Zora Deniz Ozturk, Brandon Thomas, Lauren Gross, Jessica Dubbs, Sheridan Clements, Hanna Kerchnar, Renee Androckitis

Why did you keep hiding your actual age even after graduating from high school or college?

Do you think your own life experiences and struggles heavily affected your writing, or do you think the emotion, deepness of one’s words could have to do more with talent rather than experience?

Does it come from the heart, or does one’s life help with one’s voice?

What kept you going and motivated you to continue working and writing throughout everything?

Who is your role model and who inf luenced you the most?

How did your career as a novelist help your career as an anthropologist?

How did you become such a strong, independent woman in a time when standing up for yourself was not always encouraged?

I, myself, have spent a brief amount of time in Haiti and the practice of voodoo is one I have never really learned about, as I grew up in a strict Christian household.

I want to know how being involved in these practices affected you. Did it change your outlook on life? Did it change you as a person? What interested you most in these practices?

What questions were you asking that made you pursue this study?

As an individual you seem like a mess, a strong proud mess, looking for an escape.

And I don’t know if that is correct about you, but it is often how I see myself. I see it as a connection between us.

The fact that you lived as you felt you needed... is inspiring.

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I am really in awe that you found within yourself such perseverance and drive.

Learning about you has made me feel hopeful.

Your language is so beautiful, and it brings to life the words that you have written.

I hope it gives you comfort now that your works and your life have touched so many people.

Zora—I think you knew what you were doing. But the question remains (will always remain) why did your life end in solitude?

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From Spark to Inferno* Norman Cain

So they enslaved us Beat us down to a Spark but the wind of perseverance Turned the spark into an inferno Fired us up to become Vesey, Toussaint, Harriet, Turner We sang “Go down Moses” “We shall overcome” Sculpted our dignity Created blood plasma Saved a waning agricultural South with multiple ways to use the peanut

* “So they beat him down to nothin’ but sparks but each little spark had a shine and a song.”

— Zora Neale Hurston

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Anaïs Nin, Hollywood, 1959 Jordan McCullough

It’s a small diner, only a few people are there. Some people are eating, other people are doing other things while they eat. The booths are empty and some are full one woman is just sitting there, either she’s full or there’s something on her mind, but more importantly mostly all the plates are cleaned off but what’s not finished is her coffee. The woman looks sad and also terrified, maybe she’s had a rough day or someone she cared about really let her down. Everyone else is chatting and being happy while she’s staring out the window into the abyss in silence.

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At a Crossroads Brenda Bailey

Couples holding hands, sometimes stopping for a kiss Addicts whose nod is almost to the ground Children running, running Houses coming and going Cars - some old some new, cars - some loud some rocking - A&P, Longacre’s, Ocean City Left but not gone signage Grass turns to concrete Rosa Bloom’s, Teddy Redd’s, get your drink on Ms. Sis for a baggie of broken pretzels and chips Couples holding hands, sometimes stopping for a kiss

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Dear Memory Christine Nieman

Dear memory, you plague me, even when I think I’m free you draw me back, snap my mind into tiny shards. Dear memory, you comfort me, hold my hand and squeeze back. Dear memory, you fail me, once and ever again and again. A moment is sooner lost than remembered, instead you crystallize around those days, those hours stretched to years. You haunt me through deserts and oceans of poisoned air. You find me when I should be better off, when the cobwebs around my smile start to loosen and suddenly I’m suffocating on your dense, dark waves. But memory, you lie to me, you hold up a funhouse mirror and bounce rays of light into my eyes. I see nothing not colored or punctured by your wrath. You hold all the cards and strings. Like a disobedient puppet I try to cling to my own memories. I try to choose my good hours and stretch them for days, but inevitably you let them slip. Hours becomes minutes becomes f leeting seconds.

Dear memory, my friend and foe, the elephant on my breaking back, the chains rattling around my neck, I’d ask you to leave but you’re all I have of so much I don’t have anymore. The living die but you live in me, never quieted until I find my own rest. Dear memory, I cling to you, as each life raft sinks you buoy me back to life. All you hold and all you will hold. In a moment, in a sigh, it’s the stretches and shadows of what I will be that have to come out; those moments that pass me by, there will be more. There have to be more.

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Baby Dolls Elizabeth Abrams

Baby Dolls, Talking Tina, Betsy Wetsy, Chatty Cathy Dolls 3 Foot Tall, Walking Dolls All Blond, Blue Eyes, Pink Plastic Skin Black mothers in the 40’s that’s 1940’s Were hard pressed to locate A black doll even a brown doll My mother shopped everywhere Gimbels, Wanamakers, Lit Brothers, Woolworths Thrift shops, Strawbridges, Snellingbergs, Kresges, 2nd hand stores, f lea markets Successful, mom purchased & Brought to me in the hospital, as I Laid with scarlet fever a 2 bodied Topsy Turvey doll Black face, black napply plaits a cloth Black face with brown button eyes Never before in my toy filled world, had I Ever seen a doll like that (with a story) Drop her – and she always landed face-side up For she had 2 faces, separated by a ruff led skirt Wouldn’t it be wonderful, if each time we fell, made a Mistake, we always landed safely – face-side up

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On Tripod Kyle Howey and Natasha Hajo

NH: The end here always feels the same—breathing out, lots of love, scrambling to find the words. Telling the story of us.

KH: It began with realizing I was becoming a part of this community. I didn’t know that these writers of all kinds - high school students, Drexel students, seniors I’d never met before – would soon become close friends.

NH: What I did at Writers Room during my time as a student armed me with the ability to look in and through. I began taking note of ref lections—my own and others’—in places and people and feelings. I used writing to find the overlap. I made a home of it.

KH: Writers Room found me at a time when I didn’t know what I needed. I was a sophomore at Drexel, newly an English major, returning to writing, and quietly unsure of where my interests were taking me. I remember feeling both nervous and relieved at the prospect of something new.

At first, some of us tiptoed around our differences. Others dove right into what matters, despite them. But in the end, we understood what wonderful things are made together.

NH: I found myself moving differently this year as an ArtistYear Fellow. Still, I pulled from what I learned in Writers Room and brought it into a new space. I connected, shared, and laughed with students. I listened to what was said and heard what wasn’t. I tried to be like the people I’d previously been surrounded by: pillars of support who make you, who made me, feel seen.

KH: Now, Tripod, in its third year, continues to evolve – and it should. No longer a student but a guide as the Alumni Fellow, I get to see new faces, new stories, and new journeys. They impart themselves in their work – what they’ve learned. And I learn from them. I see new faith in art.

New generations thinking, speaking, acting with intention. Filling the spaces that need to be filled.

NH: What I learned in my new role is the people who know your story will always bring you back to yourself.

KH: I hope that in this often-random world, they hold onto the memories they’ve made here for all of us. They come to listen and be heard. They come to learn and to inspire others. They know that to make a mark here is not just to leave a name, but to be a part of the story.

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Dear Basketball Mark Dawkins

Dear Basketball, You have taken all my energy, you have drained me mentally, you taught me discipline and focus, but also how to smile. The game has become fun again, less pressure, and time is winding down. I’ve just played my last regular season game, wishing I could reverse time and do it again.

Although we are done here our journey is just starting. Leaving the neighborhood that taught me the game to play at the next level and continue my education won’t be easy, because just like you, my neighborhood raised me. The lessons I learned won’t be replaced or forgotten. The love I have for the things that taught me lessons are unbreakable, think you can tell by the look on my face.

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Conversations at Laurel Hill Devin Welsh

I. Whaddyou think Of our new neighbors, No, the newnew ones With the houses that look like Legos.

You think they’ll try and kick us out next?

You should see the view from ol’ Ernie’s up the hill.

They’d kill for a view like that.

II. Bright green moss crawls Across cold grey stone, emerges from dead leaves And wet earth.

And out of Death? Life.

III. Are you as bored As the faceless angels, Leaning on tired elbows Above Where you sleep?

Or are you dancing To a tune I’m too young to hear In a maze of dancing bones?

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IV. There was something about this leaf Laying face down in the puddle That made me stop and watch As the wind blew life and ripples Into the cold water gathered From melancholy clouds; Something that whispered To the part of me That gets so Tired.

V. It wasn’t until she gathered her things, Turned to leave, And spread her wings, That I saw she was an angel.

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Homebuild Workshop George Jenkins From Home 3: Visible and Audible Energy (2019)

Home Symposium provided an opportunity to work with adults, young people, professionals, novices—and these people are all from different cultures, ethnicities, and backgrounds. Writers Room brings all these people together and allows them to express their inner thoughts in their own ways as they discuss the same topic.

—George Jenkins

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YouthBuild students framing rooms to imagine shared spaces

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Yusha Johnson and Lowell Nottage in conversation

I have seen all of my students grow and be inspired. And it brings joy to me when I see them connecting to the community and learning so many positive lessons that will affect them for life. I wish everyone could feel the power that we have when we all come together in one room to talk and to write.

—George Jenkins

Retrospective / 33

After working with so many positive people during the Home Symposium at Writers Room, it has shown me that green building is not only about construction, but it’s about what each person has to offer. You don’t just have to be energy-efficient—you have to care about people in your community and what affects them.

—George Jenkins

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Participants mapping communal spaces

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Design Workshop Uk Jung From Home 3: Visible and Audible Energy (2019)

What still affects me to this day is the visible and audible energy in the room as soon as the workshop started. You could sense the excitement at each table as people worked together. It showed that this was a viable and relevant model of living in the surrounding neighborhood—one that needs further consideration, exploration, and development. There may not be one perfect solution that works for everyone, but we need to have housing models that are able to respond to diversity in age, background, current financial circumstances, family size.

—Uk Jung

Retrospective / 36

In this photo, you can see a wide age range discussing and working together. This is one of my favorite aspects of Writers Room, as we have so much to learn from all age groups.

—Uk Jung

Retrospective / 37

In this photo, you can sense that there was an active conversation about their living arrangement. This is something very few people will ever have the chance to actually control, as it is usually arrangement informed by financial or other circumstances. Hopefully we can learn from this and continue to research and one day develop shared living scenarios that give people that f lexibility and control over their living spaces.

—Uk Jung

Retrospective / 38

I am an educator and architect living and working in the Mantua neighborhood of Philadelphia. As an architect, I am most inspired by Samuel Mockbee’s work that integrated social responsibilities with education, and in creating homes and other structures that resonate with the context and create true places.

—Uk Jung

Retrospective / 39

Group Design 1

How We Forget Alex Wasalinko

Four, press smiley face stickers over your head in every photo.

Mom taught me how to erase irises and pupils.

Turn you lifeless, unidentifiable.

I will not look for your shade of blue in the sky.

Three, place your letters on a burnt offering.

Watch f lames lick up the altar, swallow your words whole in one gulp.

I feel the lump in my throat— can’t bring myself to utter goodbye without being choked by plumes of smoke.

Two, play our song backwards until I forget the original words, ‘til the needle breaks through the acetate.

Learn this new language lost from the time before, let my tongue trip over the words.

Sick instrumentals lament our dead world.

One, propel you out to sea when the embers smolder.

I take your memory’s ashes, scatter them in toilet bowls across the City.

Vanquish you with waves— one f lush, two, five, ten to end it all.

Leave your fate to the bottom feeders.

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Hopeless Philly Boy Dejah McIntosh

I wish you knew.

Knew that you could survive without the feeling to run and hide.

Philly boy.

Stuck with your footprints imprinted in the concrete.

I didn’t think when you marked your name on that concrete as a kid you made a deal with the streets.

I hope you know I’m here.

Here to sprinkle my love and protection.

Wishfully thinking that it’s enough to shield you.

Shield you from the fate you sadly have already accepted, that those concrete streets have your name written on.

Destined to have a bullet in that chest I want to save.

Oh Philly boy, I miss those days.

Days where I did see hope in your eyes the younger us that still believed we could f ly.

I see those days have passed you by.

Oh Philly boy.

You’re praying for the day that gun hits your f lesh so you can finally rest.

Philly boy just know, know that I love you.

Retrospective / 43

Fragmented Man Norman Cain

Frag

mented

MAN I N D I G O Mid night Back ground Retrospective / 44

Untitled Nathalie Goykhman

visage pocket mottled shadowed slivered blur sip

Retrospective / 45

Fine Dining Briyanna Hymms

With its designated rooms came the inability to blend. The goldenrod formal dining room, we never used, full of never-used china sets and never –hardly-ever– sat on formal dining room seats. We leave it because the previous owner said that’s what it was used for. But wouldn’t a grand piano look lovely in it? With its trapezoidal out-jutted wall?

You always thought one of us could pick up on the piano naturally. But didn’t you see that I could do other things?

NEVERMIND Everything just sat there, gathering dust, the sticky film residue we addressed when we needed to. There’s the plexi-glass-feel crystal chandelier we cleaned, maybe five years or so in between the “thanksgiving meals” and fruits piled high to ripen on trays. Pa would kneel on that large dining room table, hand me and Sey the crystal dodecahedrons so mah could dunk em in soapy water.

This memory comes in halfway through writing.

This would go on for hours. Something about sprucing up the shrine-esque entity to keep up the face value. I only remember this one time, when Sey and I were small and Bear was smaller. Now, he was a raucous toddler on wheels at the bouncing stage. We kept a rack of khmer karaoke dvds in the dining room at this point. He used to bumper car into them. He thought it was funny.

Having to clean up after him, we didn’t agree.

Another instance was Christmas; for a Buddhist family, we did Christmas like no other: we stuck an artificial tree in the corner of the formal dining room. Albeit it was the only piece of Christmas adherence we stuck anywhere, but when we passed the lights and smiled, it was enough. Recycled it every year, but hey, it still works for our purposes.

But before the arthritis and the age, pa used to put up Christmas lights all over the outside of the house. I don’t have any pictures to prove it (to my chagrin). But I have proof of them being a tradition; there’s an abundance of multicolored string lights that have been re-boxed, and spiked light orbs, yards and yards that needed detangling. I remember him explaining his strategy for one year’s decor: simplified Christmas trees (triangles) to line the lower story windows Retrospective / 46

multicolored with a spiked light orb at the top point as the would-be star, and white icicle lights to line the roof edges. I was charged with holding the ladder. A thing I still do, but now I’m also allowed up the ladder. I dream about putting up Christmas lights for him one day.

This story wanders out of the dining room and into the cold autumn air but as far as thoughts go, mine serpentine.

The room is now a warm yellow, goldenrod I said, like the f lower. But before it was a dark magenta. Mah really likes f lowers. But not nearly enough to garden. So she settled for artificial f lowers. All over the house. Which brings me to the giant arrangement in the center of the large dining room table. Light pink roses, arranged in Italian ice scoop form, held up by marbles that reminded me of the orbs from Pokémon 2000 the movie. Then some years later, she revamped it, adding tall f lowers, larkspur maybe? Definitely birds of paradise. Some calla lilies. I remember it was like a f lorist sneezed on the whole house and now we had f lower arrangements in every room. Except the f lorist was mah, and I’m not complaining since I got to choose my f lowers.

Don’t get me started on the curtains though.

I know there’s not much plot around this story. I’m just taking you on a roundabout of my dining room. You’d walk around in a circle around the grand dining table. Admire the armoires. Peak at the baby pictures and the graduation portraits. But mostly you’d note how bright the room was. Everything there told a story. If you ask mah about something, she’d have the story ready to shuff le out like an expert dealer. Maybe there was a place for and everything had its place, but I’ve never belonged more to anything than these stories. All things considered, I lived for short moments like these.

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Botanical Illustrations Briyanna Hymms

Salt Sarah Velcofsky

Salt cleanses.

My hand slipped while frying an egg and my finger grazed the hot skillet. The skin puffed and pinkened and filled with f luid. It radiated with pain like slow, lapping waves. Grandma always said that anything could be healed with seawater, so I went down to the beach. The hot rocks and fragments of shells engulf and scrape at my bare feet as I wade in. I keep to the shallows and lower to my knees, resting there so the water meanders around my neck. Salve. The burn stings, then subsides. Seaweed fills the water. Robust and slimy, it tangles about my limbs. Bandages.

The burn is just a f lat welt when I emerge.

Salt parches.

My lips feel pruney and dry. Can’t stop licking them. Must stop. The water in my bottle, overwarmed by the sun, mixes with the salt on my lips as I sip. Briny bathwater. I’ll go the mile or so walk without it. The seawater on my body evaporates, leaving a crystalline shell behind. I feel tight and itchy and crusty.

Salt rots.

The wooden slats of the boardwalk are dry and splintered. Corroded nails are no longer strong enough to hold the corners down. I stumble on some of them even though I’ve walked here thousands of times. There’s never any money for repairs. Wealthy city dwellers summer elsewhere. The paint on the shop signs downtown is prematurely old and cracking. Seafood. Ice cream. Books. Auto parts. The rusty spring in Grandma’s screen door groans as I enter. She sits on the back porch, smoking a cigarette and reading a true crime novel. The skillet, now cool, remains on the stove.

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In July 2019, Writers Room partnered with Mural Arts Philadelphia’s guest curator-in-residence Daniel Tucker and People’s Paper Co-op artists Courtney Bowles and Mark Strandquist for the series Power Map: Historical Mural Activations. “We Exist in Multitudes” was created in response to the mural Boy with Raised Arm by Sidney Goodman (1990) at 40th and Powelton. This program was developed in conjunction with Whitman at 200 and was one of six new commissions activating murals created in Mural Arts Philadelphia’s first 20 years.

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We Exist in Multitudes Hasciya Austin, Brenda Bailey, Patricia Burton, Rosalyn Cliett, Merle Curran-Ackert, Barbara Dale, Dejah McIntosh, Jordan McCullough, Carol Richardson McCullough, Darrell Omo-Lomai, Victoria Huggins Peurifoy, Chanda Rice, Mabedi Sennanyana, Devin Welsh

We contain conf licting stories. We carry generations of information in our DNA. We are standing on the shoulders of those who came before us. Our family is the backbone. Our source of strength. The vessel of love and support. It is the starting point, the spot from which we venture forth into the world and the place to which we can return. But home can also be insecure.

Our dreams can be stepped on by our family, friends, and other haters. Gentrification and displacement are all around. Building community means ensuring that everyone has a place to come home to.

We are healing from old and new wounds. From self-harm. From abuse. From feeling we are nothing. We have many to help us cope; to deal with what has stemmed from oppression and culture. We are a culmination of years of history, tradition, and experiences. Our personalities are formed from the countless people we meet. We are more complex than others might see at first glance. I constantly have new ideas and I’m learning to make them a reality. The world is a dark and cruel place, but only because people don’t know right from wrong. But I do. I work for world peace.

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Dejah McIntosh

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Jordan McCullough

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Victoria Huggins Peurifoy

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Brenda Bailey

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Rosalyn Cliett

Merle Curran-Ackert

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Chanda Rice

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Carol Richardson McCullough

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Victoria Huggins Peurifoy

Hasciya Austin

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Courtney Bowles and Mark Strandquist

Neighborhood Histories Roundtable: Highlights Rachel Wenrick, Scott Knowles, Helma Weeks, Gwen Morris, De’Wayne Drummond

Rachel Wenrick Helma Weeks is the chair of Powelton Village Civic Association’s Historic Preservation Community. Gwen Morris is secretary of Mantua Civic Association. De’Wayne Drummond is president of Mantua Civic Association. And Scott Knowles, department head, Department of History, Drexel University. Thank you so much.

I’m going to start with the first question and then Scott is going to lead the panel. We asked everyone to consider, what are the stories that are most significant to you about the neighborhood’s

Devin Welsh

history and history of development in it? What are the stories you’d like us to know?

Helma Weeks,

Gwen Morris,

De’Wayne Drummond,

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Scott Knowles

Scott Knowles Thank you, Rachel. I’ve been at Drexel for 18 years. When I came to Drexel, we didn’t even have a course in the history of Philadelphia. So it was as if we existed in Philadelphia, in a place, but we only taught the history of other places. Sometimes the history of the United States, but rarely even about this place. And so we started doing that about 14 years ago and then when the university started to look at neighborhood partnership and the Dornsife Center was founded, we had a lot of discussions about how can the faculty and the students be involved in this very exciting kind of way of thinking about what a university is. We learned we had kind of forgotten a lot of things about the history of our own place and the way we were connected a long time ago.

That has been profound for us in the history department, for our students and for our faculty.

We’ve taught a number of courses in the history of Philadelphia which have been communitybased learning, so-called side by side courses which are community members and history students working together. They, without exception, have been the most profound teaching experiences in my career. They’re usually situations where I sort of start a conversation a little bit and then get out of the way and let the community members and the students work together towards understanding what’s important to them about this place and the history of this place. I think, today, to me, departs in that spirit…I’m going to ask our panel to really share with us their thoughts about the way the community’s history, and Drexel’s history might be intertwined.

We’re gonna talk about the past but we’re also gonna talk about the future. History is not some dusty list of names and dates, regardless of how you were taught in high school. It should be a vital conversation about a past that then lays a groundwork for us to think about a future, particularly in a democracy and particularly in an urban space like Philadelphia. So I hope that we can get into some of that kind of discussion today as well.

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Helma Weeks My name is Helma Weeks. I’ve lived in Powelton twice. I lived here in 1968 to ‘73. And then I came back in 1997 and I’m still here. The original reason we moved to Powelton in the 60’s is we were looking for a neighborhood that was integrated and at that point the City of Philadelphia was pretty much in an uproar. There were riots and it was really quite a deep racial division. We had originally looked over by the art museum and decided that that was not integrated enough and came across Powelton which is a truly integrated neighborhood. And that goes back to the Quaker initiative after World War II. Quakers came into Powelton and acquired buildings and created cooperative requirements to be racially integrated because at that point mixed couples couldn’t find places to live. As I said, they came to Powelton. Then out of that tradition, the neighborhood acquired sort of a liberal reputation and also an activist reputation. We bought our first house there and I’d say lived we there for like six years and then for various reasons moved out.

But then it was difficult because the area was red-lined… the houses were not that expensive but as you know the Powelton houses, they’re big, and most of them are apartments. We were a young couple, we had no money, and the people we bought the house from, the reason they sold was because of the draft and they had a son and it was the Vietnam War era so they went to Canada. The whole family picked up and moved, sold their house. Trying to think, I think it was like a big old Second Empire Victorian with six apartments and I think it was like $22,000 and then they gave us a second mortgage because we didn’t have enough money and they wanted to get out of the country so their son didn’t have to go to the military, and so forth and so on.

The reason we came here was because it was a liberal neighborhood. It was totally integrated, and we didn’t think there would be a riot around the corner, that was the other thing. We liked it.

When I came back in 1997, again, there’s a certain vibe [in Powelton] and there’s a tolerance there and it still exists to some extent, not as much as used to. The neighborhood has changed because home ownership has gone down, the houses have been bought up by developers and have been turned into student apartments, and so you have a constantly changing group of renters. It’s not as permanent as it used to be. Hopefully, maybe, we can restore some of the home ownership at some point. But at this point, unfortunately, the housing prices have gone up. It’s no longer $22,000 a house. That house that we first bought now is probably worth $800,000 since the 60’s.

That’s a little bit of my background.

Scott Knowles noted that panelists were talking about diversity as an intentional value and motive for living in Mantua and invited panelists to discuss this.

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Helma Weeks I just wanted to say something in terms of the community… talking about the 60’s… Aside from the racial tension in the city, but it was also a turning in time because of the urban renewal.

Powelton probably was a little more affected than Mantua because Drexel originally was a commuter college so it didn’t have that big an impact on the community. Then it eventually turned into Drexel University and became a residential establishment. In the 60’s, with the urban renewal, we saw a tear down, and between Penn and Drexel, this whole area, and the City. . .all of the stuff north of Market was torn down. The University City High School, the whole neighborhood, was obliterated. That forced the residents from Powelton to really stand up for their rights. There were some great court fights and so on.

It took over 10 years for this to be resolved and eventually the residents sort of won because since then anything with urban renewal, they can’t just come in and tear down, they have to go to the community. And it was decided on a federal level that there is input by the affected. And that contributed, I think, to getting people in our neighborhood to get together…

Weeks spoke of the resistance when a collection of buildings were threatened at the 3200 block on Arch toward 33rd on the south side.

The Powelton people sat on the bulldozers. A lot of fabric was destroyed and a lot of character was destroyed. If this community hadn’t gone to bat, the whole neighborhood could have been wiped out! And then they would have come over here and done the same thing. They stood their ground.

People today have to stand their ground again. That’s what we’ve done a little bit but it’s difficult.

We’re now in a tear down phase again. In urban development, there’s these cyclical things when you look at cities’ histories. It comes and goes, the same thing comes over and over. So we now have a conservation district. Mantua got their zoning changed. But there are these incredible battles.

The communities, the older people are going to bat right now because the young people don’t have time or maybe not the interest or maybe they don’t really know and maybe they don’t care about an older building. I don’t know the answers, as you say. We have to get people engaged.

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Gwen Morris Gwen Morris explained that she began renting an apartment in Mantua when she was studying at Temple University. She’s been living in Mantua for about 46 years, still living in the house she paid $14,000 for. “I’m not even gonna tell you what it’s valued at today.” …when I met the people of Mantua, this community, the community was diverse, as Helma said. There were professionals, there were poor families, there were students. Coming from my background, having gone to school in a very diverse environment, it was important for me.

Although my family thought I was crazy. They said, “why are you living there? That’s called the Bottom.” They were reluctant to visit me because it wasn’t seen by other communities as the safest place to come visit. But I hung in there, obviously, for 46 years. Now when they come, they say, “Wow, this is a very different kind of place.” ### I have met people who have been here 70-80 years in this community and they’ve never moved.

But there are others who have moved away but they still continue to come back, and that’s what I remember most, about how it’s important that folks understand [that] the connection to where you were born and raised is everlasting. And so, for me, I guess I’ll be here until Helma and I get an apartment together some place in some big houses we have. We’ll pay our rent, and we’ll be okay. It’s really something, it’s very meaningful. Every significant in my life happened as an adult here. I had my daughter, I graduated from college, I got my degrees here, I bought my first house. All of those things are important, but where I was born and raised or whatever is equally as important. So I think that’s what we all need to remember about our communities.

Morris also responded to Knowles asking the panelists to talk more about memories of the integrated nature of the neighborhood, and about how to talk about “how we can recover those memories with a bit more strength.

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Gwen Morris I think that quite often hatred comes from ignorance and not knowing and understanding those things that we have in common. Those differences sometimes create tension between individual people based on race, religion, and economics. There are people who basically don’t interact with poor people. I think I was really fortunate. My mother said there was a whole lot of people praying for us because in a family with 9 children, we were very poor.

I got an opportunity to leave my community and go to a school that was very diverse. Racially diverse, economically diverse, and religiously diverse. The exposure that I received very early on in life helped shape the way I thought about what the world was about. ### …I really enjoy young people, but I’m really struggling because they think so differently and I’m challenged by the way people think, problem solve, and that kind of thing, including my 42-yearold daughter. It’s not working for me. So I know that’s gonna be a struggle for me moving forward. How do you communicate with young people? ### How do we raise awareness about what’s important to residents here? …for the last 10 years, I’ve been raising somebody else’s sons, okay? I’ve been raising somebody else’s sons. I have four big brothers, but I’ve been raising somebody else’s sons. Not that I don’t have the time on my hands, but how do we bridge that big gap, generationally, between where Helma and I are and where young students are? How do we have a mutual relationship where there’s a respect for my culture and what I need as a resident, and what you are going to enjoy in the community in which you move into? Because that, to me, is the critical conversation for what goes on in Mantua, Powelton, and Drexel, between and among the three. That particular issue.

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De’Wayne Drummond My name is De’Wayne Drummond. Something that Gwen Morris said. . . Your roots are important and if you don’t know your history, you ain’t going to know your future. That’s how a lot of communities change. You just talked about Brewery Town. Somebody just came in and said, hey we’re going to name it Brewery Town and disrespect it, that community, culture, and history.

When it comes down to me and the Drummond family, my grandma came up from Roanoke, Virginia in 1942. It was an opportunity. She was 21 years old. She got into a dispute with somebody else and they chased her into her home. Her mother was cooking string beans and she took the pot off the stove and threw it on the woman. She did. She went through the system. The judge let her off because it was self-defense… And she had an opportunity to a new life by coming to Philadelphia.

And when she landed in Philadelphia. She landed up on 34th and Wilder Street, right next to where it used to be the Sam Deli Bar. From there, she moved up to 38th and Haverford Avenue where she lived on top of a church. From there, she moved to 34th and Haverford Avenue where she got married to her husband, George Drummond. We had that property since 1958. My grandfather paid $3,500 straight cash out of his pocket for that house, and they started a family.

Through that family, they had three children: my mother and my two aunts. From there, she had plenty and plenty of grandchildren, and I am one of them.

My history is Mantua. I’ve always been engaged in civics. My grandfather used to be a committee person and I was kind of like his Robin. He was Batman, I was Robin. We used to bang on people’s doors to ask them are they registered to vote. Who can tell a 6-year-old kid “no”? So I did that up until I was 18 years old and my grandfather said, “De’Wayne, did you fill out that voter’s registration form?” And I said, “Yes.” He said, “Guess what? When that car comes back, I’m gonna retire and you’re gonna take my place as a committee person.” And I did. I’ve been a committee person for 20 years. So that’s some of my roots in Mantua, basically community engagement, civic engagement, and to stick with our motto, “Plan or be planned for.” If you’re not at that table, you’re gonna be on the menu…. ### …I keep on hearing this thing about the youth. I really am an optimistic person and I think that the youth is gonna come. I think one thing about the youth nowadays, they’re more reactive than proactive. I guess I was raised by older people, so I know about being proactive. I know how to Retrospective / 72

fight unorthodox. Yes, I am right-handed, but I will fight you with my left hand and I will stomp you with my left foot too. I’m just very optimistic. I just started watching the news almost a month and a half ago. I stopped watching the TV for almost a year. I did. Because it was a bunch of nonsense on TV. It’s almost like De’Wayne turned it back on, and I’m seeing all this stuff about #metoo and all this stuff about trauma. It’s needed. The same thing. People talk about Kanye West. I looked at the Nixon thing and James Brown was supporting Nixon. So history is just repeating itself. And I see how the Civil Rights Movement happened back in the 60’s. The same thing is happening today. All I can tell y’all, what Ice Cube said, “Brace yourself.” And don’t be a fool.

Audience Member (to De’Wayne Drummond) Thank you so much for talking about your experiences in the neighborhood. I have a question.

You mentioned the deal with Drexel and I’m curious…Are you still worried? I know the President (John Frye) had said people are concerned what’s gonna happen to Mantua and Powelton. They’re worried what’s gonna happen there is what happened in West Philly with Penn developing west.

Are you worried about development?

De’Wayne Drummond I think we could use that CBA agreement as leverage. There’s still something called Promise Zone. And I always looked at promise zone as going from the back of the bus to the front of the bus when it comes down to writing grants and getting funding. The thing is, it is about collaboration, so we have to really stay in conversation with the University and government to hold them accountable.

Like I said before, I’m an optimistic person. My thing is don’t agonize about it. Organize and then mobilize. Hold people accountable. The good thing about the CBA agreement is, my grandma used to say, “If it’s not in writing, it doesn’t count.” What was happening back in the day was a whole lot of back door deals, handshake, whispering down the lanes and things. So we got this document. We just can’t hold it and leave it on the bookshelf and let it collect dust.

It’s a living document and it can grow. So we just have to have good relations. You can be at the table and not like a person. But at the same time, if it’s time for our community to eat, time for your institution to eat, it’s time for the government to eat, we all can eat together. Just like that, somebody give you a crumb or slice of bread, own the recipe, own the document, and that’s what we gotta do: own the document.

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Postcard from Home Symposium Rebecca Arthur

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Home & Creatures Kyle Howey and Kelly McQuain

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Grandmoms Patricia Burton

Grand Mom Bea Grand Mom Bea, as she was affectionately known in the family, was a fun-loving, outgoing and jovial woman. Her deep laughter brightened every corner and resonated throughout the house.

Blue, pink and white f lowers spread themselves joyfully across her ample bosom, and wide shoulders and hips of the faded house dress she seemed to wear almost every day like a uniform.

Balancing a cigarette precariously between smiling, pursed lips while cooking, cleaning and gambling, she would f lash a matching set of dimples that could disarm even the most seasoned Pinochle or Tonk player for a split second. But that’s all it took in the gambling world. Cut throat was the name of the game. With her head held high and tilted just so, Beatrice Burton moved through life with a fierce confidence born of being comfortable in one’s own skin. She wasn’t privy to petty things like gossip, but she definitely wasn’t church material either.

Her house was the party house. There was always a rent party, a card party, and of course a speakeasy. Even when nothing special was going on, people just seemed to like being around her easy going way of being. Of course I always liked the parties cause that meant food, music, cousins… in that order.

Beatrice was my paternal grandmother and got married at 16 before my father was born, in 1926.

Her family migrated from Columbia, S.C. during the late thirties during the Great Migration, a period from 1910-1960 when over 6 million Black people left the Southern states and travelled North. They were searching for opportunity, jobs, and reprieve from the oppressive Jim Crow South.

When families migrated, they tried to relocate close to one another and they socialized on weekends and holidays. Sometimes three generations lived in a house or apartment with plenty of aunts, uncles and cousins living on the same block. Families spent more time together back then, supporting and protecting each other. Our opportunities were more limited then, but now the whole world is open. Families move away, life goes on. Hopefully folks remember and cherish family memories, traditions and stories. It’s our stories that write us and bring to life our ancestors’ struggle to prepare the way for us.

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Grand Mom Leila It saddens me that I don’t have any pictures of my Grand Mom Leila, my maternal grandmother.

But I see her face every time I look in the mirror. Her fiery hazel brown eyes, high resolute cheek bones and adventurous spirit still feel familiar to me… like a comfortable pair of shoes tucked away in the back of the closet. At 5 years old I’d spend hours plaiting, twisting and styling her long silver gray hair, which she usually wore in two plaits wrapped around her head several times. She was a rather buxom woman not much prone to laughter, and there was a quiet reassurance about her that commanded attention and gained respect. When Leila spoke everyone listened. Even the children.

It was busy at both of my grandmothers’ houses, but each one was a different kind. Leila was the Wise One and was usually surrounded by at least half a dozen of her grandchildren at any given time. We learned structure, responsibility and of course, discipline.

It seems like all the activity centered around the kitchen, my favorite place. By age 4 years old I discovered the “fine art of volunteering.” I found out that helping out in the kitchen always meant free food. I loved to lick the cake pan after the batter was poured and set in the oven. One time I almost ate half a jar of Baby Gherkins pickles that were supposed to go into the potato salad. The story goes that I unabashedly exchanged kisses with my Godmother Latrelle in exchange for yet another pickle. I don’t care much for Gherkins today, but I really love potato salad.

I think Leila had the cure for everything and I particularly recall her spring cleaning regime. She would line all of us up chronologically and we would each be obliged to partake of her ghastly concoction… a drop of turpentine on a cube of sugar. I’m not sure what it was supposed to have done, but we never got sick or missed a day from school.

But the worst remedy of all was yet to come… Castor Oil. Once again she’d line us up age wise and begin to give each one of us a teaspoon of Castor Oil followed by ½ cup of orange juice. I was the youngest and always got mine first. It was torturous how slowly it moved… in the bottle… out the bottle… onto the spoon… into your mouth… Yuk! I would laugh at my older cousins who had to witness the agony and groans of all the younger ones. But we all belonged to Leila so there was no mercy. The same fate awaited all of us… big and small. Leila was tough, but she was fair. She taught us how to get along and look out for one another and we did that. Then everyone grew up and moved away. Hopefully, they took a bit of Leila with them.

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Union Transfer Cosmo Randazzo

Somewhere, in Philadelphia, lives an unread emotion. As a writer, you either find it, or imagine it so hard that you nearly burst a blood vessel, in which case a narrative is born. It’s a birth unsightly; it is marker on mahogany, and the sweat that passes a singer’s ear as they recite lyrics, stacked neatly on tempos we count by way of our own heart beats, but never out loud.

In this case, what are we enumerating, when we arrive? Does time stutter in the wake of our own personal interval? When they first amalgamated the theory to suffering, to exclusion, to complete futility, they avoided the way a human body can endure electric pains beyond the stacked sense of an abacus spine, beyond a threat to one-hundred and seventy-three other glass bones, and beyond the plain tally of a woven scar. Emotion, non-quantum and everywhere at once, is the first thing to leave us as we retire from non-existence, spitting and crying for life, and the last thing to leave, too, when from the greatest womb we ultimately retire. Zero, and infinity.

The marker runs out, someday, never. Who’s counting?

God—whatever this is to you—is a writer, whose biography for us f luctuates between an ode and an obituary, without changing tone, without skipping a beat. Mathematicians, I am afraid, have no place in the Holy Land, much less under our ribs, or between beams of stage lighting. Here, we are all the unread emotions of a universe with no music, no bathroom stall.

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Push Anjelikal Rogers

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Idly By Kyle Howey

In my neighborhood of… learning and unlearning, the mind wanders where I cannot. The elder leaning fencework barriers a lot. Earth is underfed. The ghosts of groceries cling to steel diamond mesh, eventually freed, embarking on the wind. Over Sundays, gray shapes make for gray malaise. Autumn for the sidewalk strays. I am only one of them. Dog walkers domesticate by going out at night. One of them is a parent. The belfry sounds. Morning bellows. Commuters idle by, persisting. Porch smokers take in the early light. Do they know they are content?

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Acceptin Christ Chanda Rice

I had done my homework in school. So I can tidy up before I go down the street to Ms. Carol’s.

She tells us how Jesus loves us and we sing songs. I can feel the breeze come through the door.

Mr. George is sitting in the corner looking at us. She has printed out papers for us to work on and color. We all are laying on the f loor. After Bible Study, she gives us cookies.

Down the street at Ms. Carol’s house for Bible Study.

It is 4:00 in the evening.

It’s summertime.

The sunlight is coming through the window.

It warm.

It smells like cookies.

We are holding hands in a circle praying.

I am here for Bible study.

We are praying.

We are in a circle.

Nothing, my eyes are closed.

A piano.

A rug.

A ceiling.

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Cause and Effect Victoria Huggins Peurifoy

cause and effect cause and reject cause and collapse cause and debt cause and denial cause and debacle cause and why cause and shame cause and blame cause and the effects will make people change change their hearts change their desires cause a new normal cause and effect cause and be blessed cause and entanglement cause and defame cause and vote cause and hope cause and unemployment cause and economy cause and death is cause and collateral damage.

We know who doesn’t care.

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Because I Am Three-Quarters Gone Carol Richardson McCullough and Kirsten Kaschock

Because I am three-quarters gone, I write open-ended definitions.

Because the world can be scary and unfair sometimes, I write the doors shut.

Because I am still searching to find my way, I write to fill the gaps between hither and thither, there and you.

Because the world is a ravenous beast ready to chew up people and spit out their bones, I write knives and forks and p’s and q’s and zippers.

Because I am a patchwork quilt with pieces of my family and former lovers cross-stitched to cover me, I write madness and joy and hiccups.

Because the world is going mad, I seek some moments cuddled up with a book, and I write like mad.

Because I am so tired of your same sorry bullshit, I write death out as a preventative and a warning.

Because the world keeps opening, I write bubbles and buckets. Pop and Bob. Because I could not stop for death he kindly stopped for me--(shout out to Emily D!)--I write confessional science fiction.

Because the world is so much black and white, I write chocolate moons on vanilla sky with sprinkles.

There must always be sprinkles.

Retrospective / 83

On Pause Mallika Kodagavanti, Earl Hackett, Jasmine James, Rachel Wenrick, Patrice Worthy

Mallika Kodagavanti ...The fact that spring is everywhere is lifting me up. Even though the news updates are filled with tragedy, stress, and worry, I still try to take the time to appreciate how blue the sky is and all the birds I hear when I walk my dog. The magnolia tree down the street is a delicate shade of pink, and it melts into the early morning sun every day. Our hyacinths are in full bloom, and their sweet fragrance has been filing the kitchen for the past few days. Life is stressful and weird right now, and we can’t control all the crazy things going on, but taking a moment to appreciate what’s happening right around me in the moment around me helps me feel a tiny bit more sane.

Earl Hackett Red is a color, while read is an action. Pandemic sounds like the end of the world and for many it will be. For those who survive, take the time to write something down. For those in Writers Room, it’s how we recall the past and look forward to a different world. Maybe now we can get others to write something down since they can get out to into the world...

Jasmine James This prompt is hard. It shouldn’t be, but it is. I mean, currently this pause is causing me to constantly reevaluate my plan and never actually make many moves towards completing the first step.

The depleting desperation and rising indifference taints my spirit. I know this should have been the perfect opportunity to choose a specific program, or paint (for the first time in a couple of years) or begin to re-learn the piano...all things that help me to feel valuable and validated. I have high expectations but low motivation, so trying to take advantage of this forced break is proving to be more difficult than I thought it would be. That being said, I have tried to work on processing change in a healthier manner as I want to be better at dealing with uncertainty, my hamartia.

I’ve tried writing little messages in my notes and looking up positive quotes to satiate that part of me which rests in an existentialist quandary at every moment... making a list of my true passions and trying to figure out why I’m so afraid of failing before I begin, reading the Bible and Retrospective / 84

attempting to reintroduce myself to the religion I grew up around and trying to document past experiences in greater detail, so that I can avoid becoming too complacent with compromising my comfort. I do want to work on myself, and even though it can feel claustrophobic with all my demons in this stuffy apartment, I’m trying.

As for the past, I honestly feel like I’ve been on go mode since fourth grade. I was blessed enough to have vacations and weekend getaways, but definitely never had to take a pause this impetuous before.

I had a few events in my life that I could consider a break in normalcy: when I changed schools during my elementary years, when I lost my group of friends, when my mother got married, when I started high school and moved out to the burbs, when I began college, when I finished and I guess...2020...as whole (as social media will corroborate, this quarantine isn’t the only shocking quality about this year).

Each time (milestone? That’s probably a better word but I feel like a new mother describing her amazing 22-month-old when I use it) I suppose I shifted and developed a new persona and bubble to fall into. Focus...retreat within myself...find a new goal...rinse...repeat. I didn’t necessarily grow as much as I could have each time and I want this pause to be different.

At the end of all this, if I can’t come out with a clear organized plan for my future, at the very least, I want to come out as equipped as I can be to deal with the uncertainty.

Retrospective / 85

Rachel Wenrick I want to just sit here and listen to that ping and crackle, like astronauts in space beaming a signal back to earth.

To the throat clearing. To the hey theres and the how you beens. The breath.

This is the first time my mind has been quiet in weeks.

Patrice Worthy Talking to people during this time means so much more than it did before, than I ever could realize voices become embraces that I hope will suffice as we wait alone I labor over the emphasis of each word and wonder if in between pauses it is clear how much I’d rather not talk at all and just sit next to you It is bright. I feel the sun on my back and on my face. Its warmth reminds me of the love of my mother and how she felt when she was here. I stop, something that I rarely do anymore, and just allow myself to exist. I measure my breathing, and try to shift it to go deeper, to find respite within. I’ve read so many books on how to heal, and yet I still have to write my own.

Retrospective / 86

Rachel Wenrick

Retrospective / 87

Rachel Wenrick

Retrospective / 88

Credits of Previous Publications

Most of the works in this retrospective were previously published in Writers Room publications.

For an index of these publication credits, see “Notes and Acknowledgements” at the end of The Story So Far: A Co-Housing Kit and Introduction to the Second Story Collective.

“Union Transfer,” by Cosmo Randazzo, was previously published in Paper Dragon.

“At a Crossroads,” by Brenda Bailey, was previously published in Poems for the Writing, Prompts for Poets (2nd Edition) by Valerie Fox and Lynn Levin.

“How We Forget, by Alex Wasalinko, was previously published in Giovanni’s Room 2020 anthology, Queerbook.

Retrospective / 89

Writers Room is a university-community literary arts program engaged in creative placemaking and art for social justice. We are a diverse intergenerational collective of students/alumni, faculty/staff, and neighborhood residents whose work demonstrates a desire for collaborative opportunities in our joint communities. writersroomdrexel.org

SECOND STORY COLLECTIVE A collaborative venture of Drexel’s Writers Room, this collective of artists, activists, architects, and West Philadelphia residents is united by a vision: shared living space and shared stories can create a foundation for meaningful co-habitation. secondstorycollective.org

SECOND STORY COLLECTIVE