Marge Pellegrino

 2021 kicked off with a series of zoom workshops through the Arizona State Museum. Lisa Falk and I worked together to develop and facilitate the six sessions with thoughtful students from three different high school classes. The project is documented in “Walls Are Not Black and White: Student Exploration of Border Walls Through Creative Writing” published in September 2021 the Journal of Folklore and Education.

If you’d like to see the exhibit, check out the writing prompts, listen to a radio interview as well as the collaborative poems the classes wrote — it’s all here on Arizona State Museum’s website!

Tiziano Dossena’s questions covered lots of ground! Thanks for the opportunity to share in L’Idea Magazine!

All the writing prompts in Neon Words were fine tuned within groups in libraries, schools, and community settings.

Writing together invites us to see how others think and process. Sharing what we’ve written helps us get to know each other better and can build understanding and wonder.

Give it a try!

Exquisite Corps Poems

written in the Dress Matters gallery

at Tucson Museum of Art, 11/12/17

by a Pima County Public Library writing workshop

First lines  from an Owl & Panther poem inspired by the same art

After Nick Cave’s Soundsuit, 2006

Year flashes in lightening and sparkle dark flowers

Flowers galore, sparkly, beaded, all exquisite

Exquisite fits

Fits of euphoria, drama, sparkle surrounds the unseen figure,

figure walking on feet guided by swirling stars

Stars dazzle with their absurd excess

Excess is sensuous bright colors, delightful

Delightful in color but not in shape, oh well, what is?

Is…

After Angela Ellsworth’s Seer Bonnet XIX (Flora Ann), 2011

Pretty, spiky, dangerous, scary – makes me want to Touch.

Touch, don’t touch, touch, don’t touch – beauty is on the fingers of the beholder

Beholder of millions of shiny beads and pins

Pins, 24,182 pearl corsage pins fill a shoe box

Box upon box of carefully pinned pearls;

Pearls of beauty, pearls of wisdom

Wisdom pinned sharp as steel

Steel strength flows in ribbons

Ribbons and pins, dangerous daggers

Daggers

Excited about the new book with Marianna Neil and art by Aida Algosaibi-Stoklos. 11/18 we’ll be at Southside Presbyterian to celebrate John Fife’s 50th ordination anniversary with the book! On 11/20 we’ll have a chance to show the original art from the book and talk about the impact the sculpture and book had on our lives at Theology Uncorked, 6:30 at St. Frances Cabrini Parish, 3201 E. Presidio Road, in the Parish Hall. Please join us if you can!

Missing You: Honoring Loss and Resilience in South Tucson

Read more from Readings & Workshops Blog
A blog from: The Staff of Poets & Writers
Posted by RW Blogger on 11.28.16

Teaching artist Marge Pellegrino recently led a series of P&W–supported writing workshops for the YWCA’s La Escuelita’s summer program. Pellegrino has written about grief and resilience for children. Since 1999, she has directed programming for the Owl & Panther expressive arts project that serves refugees impacted by torture, trauma, and traumatic dislocation. Her book Journey of Dreams (Frances Lincoln Press, 2009) is a Smithsonian Notable Book, Southwest Best Book, and Judy Goddard Award winner for excellence in young adult literature. Her book Too Nice (Magination Press, 2002) is available in five languages.

Missing You Workshop Cohort

The neighborhood surrounding the House of Neighborly Service’s La Escuelita knows loss. Many of the youth who participate in the YWCA’s La Escuelita summer camp have family members who have died too young. Some have relatives who have been incarcerated. Some youth come from mixed-status or undocumented families who are separated from loved ones by deportation.

The series of five P&W–supported “Missing You” writing workshops invited neighborhood youth from five to seventeen years of age to explore new ways to hold memories and reach out to those they love. They played with writers’ tools to create a small body of work that tapped spatial and linguistic intelligences. They let their illustrations fuel a “simile portrait.” They felt the cadence in their “I Miss/I Remember” list poems. They composed letters to the people they love and imagined how the voice of that person might sound in an answer. Some of the participants were particularly engaged when they stitched together narratives that captured details of a time they spent together with the person they miss.

One morning they wrote about the metaphorical trash in their lives on scraps of colored paper. They ripped the paper up, put the small pieces in a blender with water, “transforming trash into treasure,” and created a beautiful handmade paper cover for their book, which held their own story of resilience. Their last exploration held up gratitude. They wrote about things they valued about a brother, a tio, abuela, or the mother who loved them, in order to feel how gratitude can lift their spirits, like the last line of a great poem.

Each workshop ended in sharing within the cohort—a time when their words traveled on sound, when they could see others respond to what they had kept tucked in their hearts. A time when the writing and sharing could break through the isolation caused by a buildup of grief and separation. Hearing the others’ stories let them know they weren’t alone with these feelings.

The series culminated in a shy and proud reading for the community elders.

Photo: La Escuelita “Missing You” workshop with Marge Pellegrino.
Support for Readings & Workshops events in Tucson is provided by an endowment established with generous contributions from the Poets & Writers Board of Directors and others. Additional support comes from the Friends of Poets & Writers.

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Enjoyed the opportunity to share my passion in this new blog!
http://artunfixed.com/2014/10/22/art-inspired-writing/

Thanks Liz Parrott and Kid Lit About Politics for sharing books that help kids better understand the world around them…and just maybe inspire them to engage.