Developed and facilitated by D. B. Ruderman, an associate professor of English at The Ohio State University, Newark, Writing and Rewriting the Self (WRS) uses poetry and the workshop experience to help people in recovery to meet challenges, and get and stay clean. Through its anonymous publication of poems by people with addiction as well as its participation in community events, the program works to raise awareness of and foster a compassionate dialogue around the problem of addiction. Through forms of public scholarship (talks, published essays, classes), WRS moves beyond helping individuals towards the aim of using art to work for systemic change.
WRS has been facilitating poetry-writing workshops for people in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction since 2016. Since early 2018, it has been offered as part of the curriculum of The Day Reporting Program (DRP) of Newark OH, a program for people charged with felony drug possession. Each person in DRP has been offered the option of jail-time or participation in the program, which provides job counseling, drug testing, stress management classes, GED classes, art classes, etc. The participants, usually around twenty in a cohort, vary widely in age. Their education level and past exposure to poetry also differs greatly. Most of them have struggled with drug addiction for years, mostly heroin, crystal-meth, and opioids. Many seem to be living very close to the edge, often living with family or friends, “getting by” from day to day and week to week. It is beautiful and heartening to watch them grow in confidence and ability, carrying their poetry books with them (they each receive a hard-bound blank “moleskin” book), writing poems that are powerful, direct, raw, and immediate, and supporting one another in their self-discovery and their attempts to stay clean. As one recent graduate wrote: “This class was my favorite of all the classes offered…I still have my book of poems that I wrote while attending his class and share them often with others in recovery.”
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Writing and Rewriting the Self is a division of Attic Room LLC