CLC/speakout! Newsletter Fall 2025

Collaborative Creativity at Community Corrections

by intern Alexa Holmes

Pens scribble away, some frantically, others more slowly. Then there is the rustling of lined paper as one by one we each pass our unfinished poem clockwise around the circle. Our pensive silence is broken by an outburst or two of laughter, or a bemused groan, and accompanied by knowing glances to the right – at the writer whose freshly-written line is, at this point, still a secret shared between them and their neighbor – as each of us reads the poem we’ve been handed, to which we must add our own line. One of the things I love most about writing is that it does not always need to be a solitary activity. Writing has the potential to create connection by bringing people and ideas together – even momentarily – through collaboration, discussion, and revision. For me, the writing process seems to require connection and conversation, whether I’m brainstorming, receiving feedback, or

Pens scribble away, some frantically, others more slowly. Then there is the rustling of lined paper as one by one we each pass our unfinished poem clockwise around the circle. Our pensive silence is broken by an outburst or two of laughter, or a bemused groan, and accompanied by knowing glances to the right – at the writer whose freshly-written line is, at this point, still a secret shared between them and their neighbor – as each of us reads the poem we’ve been handed, to which we must add our own line. One of the things I love most about writing is that it does not always need to be a solitary activity. Writing has the potential to create connection by bringing people and ideas together – even momentarily – through collaboration, discussion, and revision. For me, the writing process seems to require connection and conversation, whether I’m brainstorming, receiving feedback, or working on a draft. Because of this, I was eager to bring collaborative writing prompts to SpeakOut! workshops this semester. Over the course of several weekly writing workshops at Community Corrections, I’ve had the honor of getting to know writers’ distinct styles and voices, which have been put in conversation with one another through collaborative poetry and prose. Our poetry exercise looks like this: First, I ask everyone to write down a random word. These words get shuffled and redistributed, and each person must then write the first line of a poem using their new word. We pass our sheets of paper clockwise until they return to their originator; each writer adds on to each poem that is passed to them, often offering amused or perplexed commentary in between, sometimes asking for translations of handwriting as we go. This exercise has resulted in much laughter and many compliments on one another’s creativity, word choice, and penmanship. The distinctness of each writer’s voice springs from creative choices like rhyming, imagery, metaphor, or humor. In addition to seeing people’s ideas on the page, I enjoy recognizing handwriting – a small piece of each writer, along with the words they chose to rhyme or the vivid images they created, presented on paper and shared with the group. At my very first women’s SpeakOut! workshop at Community Corrections, the words pleasantly, velvet, self-worth, calligraphy, Betty Boop, and frog were drawn from as inspiration. “Betty Boop,” one of the poems that emerged from the exercise, demonstrates how different ideas, writing styles, and perspectives can converge beautifully to create something that couldn’t have existed – or wouldn’t have been nearly as unique and meaningful – without collaboration. In her dreams she feels like Betty Boop, a red dress flowing... in my dreams I am silk I am quiet do you think rivers dream of movement or of rocks and bends? I have a dream that me as a woman would run miles after miles because I love to run. Betty Boop, Lady in Red Running as she does. Running as I should. Running through miles of red. In my writing workshops at Community Corrections, where we’ve all come from different backgrounds and experiences, collaboration feels unifying and rewarding, and it’s a reminder to me that our writing and our lives can be strengthened by each other’s contributions. Additional collaborative prompt ideas: ● Create an exquisite corpse drawing, then write a story or poem about the end result. ● Using Bananagrams tiles, create a grid of words as a group, then incorporate those words into stories or poems individually; share to see how words were interpreted differently. ● Each come up with a writing prompt, shuffle and redistribute the prompts randomly, then respond to the prompt you receive. When sharing, perhaps everyone tries to guess which prompt each writer has responded to

Workshopping the Imperative: Community Writing in the Second Person

by intern Gabby Vermeire

Dear Writing Workshop (ostensibly the one held at Acqua Recovery & Addiction Treatment Center in Fort Collins on Thursday nights at 7pm) Hello! I know you will never hear this, and that’s okay and by design, because this exercise is for my own benefit. When I address you during our actual workshops, it’s a near certainty that I’ll be unable to muster the same honesty and urgency with which I address you now. When I offer a tired initial attempt at humor, and perhaps ask you how your week has been, and you all respond with polite nods, tight lipped smiles, and perhaps an obligatory “Oh, we’re almost at the weekend!” – I can’t help but wonder (yes, we’re getting a little Carrie Bradshaw here) how your week has really been, or if I am creating even more distance between us with the attempts at small talk. Anyway, are the writing prompts actually useful? This is a satirical example of a second-person writing exercise, if the prompt were to write a letter addressed to the writing workshop you facilitate for your SpeakOut! internship. It is intended to illustrate something I have noticed, which is that using writing prompts that instruct writers to address either an abstract idea or a real subject that they would likely never actually address produces, consistently, the most powerful, vulnerable, and literary writing in these workshops. Second-person narration is rare in literature and other forms of creative writing, so it is often notable when it is used. Because of the highly specific perspective it produces, it is often used for novelty or shock. Juno Díaz is a contemporary writer who has used second-person narration in his work, including in the novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and the book of short stories This is How You Lose Her. Both works contain many sections from various perspectives, including small parts with second person narration. The themes in these stories largely involve infidelity and how we see or do not see others as human. Notably, second-person narration can be used to give humanity to whatever subject is addressed; for writers, in can be an excellent lesson in empathy. During the semi-weekly debriefs with the other interns who facilitate SpeakOut! Workshops, I have gotten a sense of the variety of ways that SpeakOut writers bring themselves and their lives to the workshops. Some writers have a great deal of familiarity with the other writers in their workshops, and as a result, their writing is cheeky, revealing, and vulnerable. For these groups of folks, any prompt is treated as a game among friends, a way to share the pieces of yourself you might hide from strangers. With sites where the writers know each other less, and spend less time at the sites, sometimes an emotional fast-forward is needed to produce more interior writing. I have found that creating and choosing prompts is more of a trick in these cases, and that using ones that have a perspective that triggers some amount of emotional creativity do the job. Prompts I’ve used that give a suggestion towards writing in the second person include: “Write a letter to your hometown;” “Think of a person that you had one impression of when you first met them that changed as you got to know them. Write a ‘character description’ of this person;” “Write a brief character description of the individual of the person to your right;” "Write about a season of your life you had to say “goodbye” to.” The last three prompts, while not explicitly instructions to write in the imperative, produced written responses in the second-person from more than one person. One writer, in particular, tends to write in this tense, and will often begin his writing with “Oh, [insert subject being addressed].” This gives a devotional quality to his writing, and something like a prayer emerges that allows him to endow either his hometown, a season of his life, or a literal season with personified figurative language. Other writers have broached the subject of addition, something that I had not encountered until several workshops into the program. In looking into this phenomenon, I came across a passage in Writing Works: A Resource Handbook for Therapeutic and Activities that described writing in the second person as creating a distancing of emotions, and less likely to produce vulnerable writing. Of course, I experience the opposite. Perhaps distancing from emotions gives one a perspective to describe them easier? I don’t know! But the mechanism doesn’t matter, and the writing is the proof in the pudding.

Writer Profile: Glen

by intern Kyla Ballard

Working as an intern with the Community Literacy Center, I have had the pleasure of co-leading SpeakOut! workshops at Harvest Farm, a residential life-preparedness program for men recovering from addiction and homelessness. On my first day as a facilitator, I recall feeling nervous. I felt the pressure of wanting all of the writers in attendance to enjoy the workshop and feel encouraged in their writing journey. I was worried that the attendees would be uninterested in the prompts that we prepared and insecure about my skill as a new facilitator. Then, in walked Glen S. with a notebook already in hand, spilling open to pages of handwritten poems, and swagger in his steps. Plopping down his stuff and pulling out the chair next to me, Glen grabbed the top copy of the SpeakOut! Journal 2025 from the stack we brought. Flipping open to a memorized page number, Glen was the one to start that first workshop, “I am published in here, do you guys want to hear my poem?” As we all listened to Glen’s poem, I felt myself relax at getting to see in action how supportive and excited the group of men at Harvest Farm were to encourage each other and grow in their writing. Glen is the only writer at Harvest Farm that I know will be there every week, no matter what. As others have said when we notice that Glen is running late, “He’ll be here, this is what he lives for.” Glen has a clear passion for his writing, crafting pieces of poetry and lyrical essays between every session, which he proudly shares with the group. His creative eye is well developed, with an innate sense for rhyme and rhythm in the pieces that he writes. Glen’s writing shows a strong grasp of how metaphor can function in a work to capture intense themes and emotions, while also giving the reader vivid images to keep them rooted in the piece. Each time he reads, I am left with chills and a deeper appreciation of the subjects that he writes about. Wrapping topics of addiction, hurt relationships, healing, guilt, and faith into each other, Glen’s writing strikes a deep emotional chord that intertwines strong negative emotions with an even stronger sense of hope and redemption. With the revised pieces that Glen brings into workshop, he shows a masterful weaving of multiple topics and poetic tools together that build to create a strong work of writing that is both beautiful and honest. In addition to being a strong writer in his own right, Glen also serves as an important role model for the other writers at Harvest Farm. Through the vulnerability and risk taking that shines through in his writing, Glen creates a space for the other writers to feel safe and invited to grapple with more intense and vulnerable topics within their own writing. He also models what it means to have a passion for writing and how that passion can, in turn, breath life back into the writer as a way of thinking about and processing through the experiences of one’s life. As a facilitator, having a strong writer like Glen also creates important opportunities for me to illustrate the feedback process and writing concepts for the whole group. As Glen is often experimenting with new forms and techniques in his pieces, I use it as an opportunity to point out specific craft techniques for the whole group. This gives me the chance to define concepts and give writers new terms that they can use to discuss craft and further their own writing. Additionally, I often use Glen’s writing to analyze why a specific technique strengthens a piece and when others might be able to use it in their own writing. Along with this, knowing that Glen is a confident writer who is ever-seeking feedback to improve his craft gives me the chance to model giving constructive criticism that might help further strengthen a piece of writing. As time has gone on, Glen has begun to step into a leadership role within the group and shows a strong desire to be a part of cultivating his fellow writers at Harvest Farm. Working with us, Glen has gotten to lead a prompt for the group and has plans to share more prompts in the future. As Glen gets closer to graduating from the Harvest Farm program, he has expressed interest in getting trained in the SpeakOut! method to become a volunteer facilitator. This would allow him to take the passion that he has for writing, along with the experience that he has as someone on the other side of the SpeakOut! program and give back to his community through cultivating other writers along their journey. Throughout my time working at Harvest Farm, I have felt honored to get to write alongside such a talented and passionate artist as Glen.

Do you want to volunteer to lead workshops?

Let us know at clc@colostate.edu and we're happy to talk to you! Or find one of our interns in the CLC office in Eddy 346A -- they'll be happy to tell you all about the challenges, the highs, and the lows (not too many of them!)

And take several copies of our journals to read, and then get them out into your world!