The power of the pen

People unleash their creativity and build new communities through workshops offered by Write Around Portland

By Janie Nafsinger

Lifestyles Northwest, Feb 1, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009

These residents of Station Place Tower in the Pearl District formed their own writing group after taking a Write Around Portland workshop. On the left are Rosemary Werring (foreground) and Kate Welch. On the right are Lloydine Arguelles (foreground) and Jared Llund. Photos by Jim Clark

Jim Clark / Portland Tribune

Jared Llund was always interested in writing, though he never wrote much beyond an occasional paragraph or letter. As for poetry, forget about it.

Then the 71-year-old Portland man heard about an organization called Write Around Portland, which was coming to teach a writing workshop at Station Place Tower, the subsidized senior housing complex in Portland’s Pearl District where Llund lives.

Llund signed up for the workshop last fall and wrote his first poem, then had it published in an anthology compiled by Write Around Portland.

“I didn’t sit down to write a poem,” he says, explaining that it evolved out of the workshop’s writing exercises.

And the experience was “empowering,” he says. “Their contention is everyone’s a writer, everyone has a voice.”

Founded in 1999, Write Around Portland offers free workshops for people who might not have access to the power of writing, including the sense of community it builds, due to their income, social isolation or other barriers.

Workshop participants include people affected by HIV and AIDS, survivors of domestic violence, low-income adults, senior citizens in foster care, teenagers living on the streets, prison inmates and people recovering from addictions or who have physical or mental disabilities. Write Around Portland alumni range from 7- and 8-year-old Girl Scouts whose mothers are incarcerated to older adults who are gay, lesbian bisexual or transgender.

“It about people expressing themselves and connecting with other people,” says Robyn Steely, Write Around Portland’s executive director.

Steely recalls a woman who wrote letters to her children in one of the workshops and a man with HIV who’d never told his family about his condition until he wrote a story about it.

“What we do isn’t therapy, but many people tell us it’s therapeutic,” Steely says.

As for Llund, he and four other residents of Station Place Tower who took the workshop enjoyed the experience so much, they started their own writing group.

“We all felt so strongly about it, we didn’t want to lose the momentum,” Llund says, adding that the group members now want to write their memoirs.

“It’s amazing and wonderful, all the different ways people have of expressing themselves,” Llund says. “It enhances my humanity and makes me appreciate them, really listening to them and hearing their story and their words.”

It also builds a sense of community “because you’re sharing with these people,” he says. “I think listening is as important a part of it as writing.”

Writings get published

Fifteen 10-week workshops, led by volunteers, are offered three times a year for groups of eight to 15 people throughout the Portland area, from Vancouver to Gresham to Wilsonville.

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