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Crossing Borders
Times of Trenton Regional News
Regional politics, crime & more
Marginalized, they find hope in books
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Lisa Coryell, Staff Writer
TRENTON "Bryan wasn't buying it. The young inmate understood that the power of unconditional love and the possibility of redemption make for interesting literary fodder but in real life, it's a little more complicated.
So he doubted that the teen criminal in Catharine Ryan Hyde's short story "The Man Who Found You in the Woods" could be turned around by the stranger who had saved his life at birth.
"Nah, he ain't changing," Bryan said, the voice of one who's been there. "He's set in his ways."
Bryan's frank assessment came during a meeting of People and Stories/Gente Y Cuentos, an unlikely book club made up of inmates, drug court participants, recovering addicts, the homeless and well-heeled suburban women. The group gathers weekly at the Trenton Rescue Mission to hear a short story read by a moderator and discuss it afterward.
This week, as the group pondered Hyde's story, moderator Diane Wilfrid posed a question to the group.
"Can you escape the past and have a clean slate?" she asked.
Joan Semenuk, a volunteer from Lawrenceville, likened the stranger's love for the boy to God's love "" forgiving and capable of redemption.
"God is overwhelming," she told the group. George, a resident of the Homeless Shelter, said he understood why the boy rejected the man's help.
"Sometimes it's hard for people to accept love when someone's trying to give it to you, especially if you don't understand it," he said.
As for the boy's chances for redemption?
"Sometimes a person's past can destroy their future," George said.
"I hope he do change," mused Geraldo, a 27-year-old drug offender. "Fifteen and he already got an armed robbery (conviction). That's not too good."
Designed
to make literature relevant and accessible to people from all walks of
life, People and Stories uses the works of James Joyce, Alice Walker,
John Updike and others to provoke meaningful dialogue among people who
otherwise might never share ideas.
"The power of the stories gives them the opportunity to discover their commonalities," said Patricia Andres, executive director of the program.
With the stories read aloud, and no preparation needed before the meeting, the program evens the playing field for people of all literary, educational and socio-economic levels, she said.
"The assumption here is that your life experience prepares you to participate," Andres said.
Founded in a Cambridge, Mass., housing project by Princeton resident Sarah Hirschman, the People and Stories program now operates 51 programs in 35 sites throughout New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania, including senior citizen centers, state prisons and halfway houses. Participation is voluntary.
The program has particular appeal to criminals preparing to re-enter the community after serving their time, she said.
"They're thinking about ways they'll make a life on the outside and reflecting deeply on their lives and choices," she said. "Literature provides a space where they can do that."
James, a 25-year-old sentenced to a Drug Court program, said he was hesitant when first approached about participating in the program at the Rescue Mission.
"I like literature and I like reading," he said. "But I wanted to make sure we weren't going to be reading (the children book series) Clifford the Big Red Dog. I wanted to make sure we'd be reading on a college level."
He soon learned that the literature used in People and Stories is substantive and the experience uplifting.
"You have a lot of negative thoughts but when you're in here reading a story it expands your thinking," he said. "You're not thinking about the negative things going on."
Geraldo agreed.
"It gives you a peace of mind," he said of the sessions. "For this hour and a half I didn't think about what was going on the outside. It takes a load off you."
Mary Gay Abbott Young, CEO of the Rescue Mission, says the program opens doors for participants.
"These stories help them to look at the world in new ways, expanding their view of other people and their own lives," she told Word of Mouth, the program's newsletter.
While Andres and Wilfrid say the sessions are not aimed at teaching literacy, some participants say they're picking up knowledge along the way.
Joseph, currently in a drug rehab program, said following reading along with a copy of the text as Wilfrid reads aloud has helped him with his punctuation.
That's something that will help him when he takes his GED test soon, he said. The People and Stories sessions are his favorite part of his rehab program, he said.
"The stories are adventurous to me," he said. "It's exciting. It's motivating. It's inspirational."
The volunteers say they also take something out of the experience.
"You get so much more insight when you read stories with a group," said Semenuk, a retired associate for pastoral ministries at a church in Lawrence.
"Being at the Rescue Mission with the men there is so interesting. I've found they're very smart and articulate and many of them are seeing things behind the stories that I'm not seeing."
"It's enriching to share ideas with people who have different experiences," Wilfrid said. "It broadens our perspective and our way of thinking."
People and Stories/Gente Y Cuentos will hold its annual fundraiser on April 1 at 7:30 p.m. at the Nassau Club in Princeton Borough.
The event will feature a reading from award-winning novelist, journalist and playwright Colm Toibin followed by a dessert reception.
For ticket information call People & Stories at 609-393-3230 or go to the program's website at www.peopleandstories.org.