I’ll
have to say I am very honored to have Ed Griffin on my blog this week. His post is inspirational and gripping.
I want you to read a little about Ed and find out more about
this interesting and talented writer.
Bio: Ed
Griffin teaches creative writing at Matsqui Prison, a medium security prison in
Western Canada. He taught the same subject at Waupun prison, a maximum security
prison in Wisconsin.
He
began his professional life in 1962 as a Roman Catholic priest in Cleveland,
Ohio. There he became active in the civil rights movement and marched in Selma
with Doctor Martin Luther King. Removed from a suburban parish for his
activities, he served for three years in Cleveland’s central city. His years in
the Roman Catholic Priesthood are the subject of his next novel.
A Safe Place I Knew as a Child
I first heard that writing prompt from a First
Nations man who spoke to my creative writing class in a maximum-security prison
in Wisconsin. I’ve used it ever since myself.
It’s an amazing prompt. It takes even hardened
convicts right back into their childhood and they start the long process of
thinking how they came to be who they are.
Over the years I’ve used it in both male and female
prisons and with my writing students in the community.
A save place I knew as a child was:
* Under the stairs when my father was drinking
* In my mother’s skirt when my dad and sister were
arguing
* At my grandma’s house, cause my dad was in jail
and my mom lived with a man who was mean to me.
* In a fort I made behind out house
* In the library where I would read books all day
* On my bed where I escaped to the places I read
about
* The foster kids beat me up, so I hid in an
abandoned car behind the barn
* By the maple tree in our back yard. When my mom
did drugs, I didn’t like how she was, so I…
* With my mother on the subway when she went to
market.
For me, the safe place I knew as a child was in our
basement with my train set. Here my father taught me about tools and about
life, here I dreamed of adventures I would have when somehow these trains and
the cities they serviced became real.
Perhaps you know of a writing prompt that works very well. Can you share
it?
Read Ed's Prison Reform
Blog: Prison Unsensored
Wow. That is a wonderful prompt. I know some poetry prompts that are lame. By comparison this prompt surely will get people to open up. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteThat's a wonderful piece of writing, too. Thank you for taking part here, Ed.
ReplyDelete