“Who do we have that’s new?”
David Ruderman perches on a stool in the front of the classroom with a wide grin, surveying the group through his thick, black-framed glasses.
He begins his Wednesday morning class by asking the group about their weeks. How is everyone doing? Are we enjoying the weather?
As people settle into desks he checks up on a newcomer, sitting in the front right corner.
“Do you know what we do in here?” Ruderman asks. “We write poetry here.”
The newcomer looks apprehensive.
“I don’t know nothing about poetry,” they say.
“That’s ok,” Ruderman says. “You don’t need to know nothing about no poetry.”
Each participant in the Licking County Adult Court Services Day Reporting Program is enrolled as a therapeutic alternative to incarceration. Many of them have struggled with long term substance use disorder.
Every Wednesday morning, participants in the Day Reporting Program sit down for class with Ruderman: Writing and Rewriting the Self. Together, they spend an hour each week writing poems. Ruderman, however, says his class isn’t so much therapy, but more of a spiritual practice.
They come in, open themselves up, hang out for an hour, read, write and laugh. And then they come back the next week.
Ruderman has been leading this class at the Day Reporting center for six years, and is a professor of poetry at the Ohio State University at Newark. Before teaching though, he was a musician just trying to carve out a place for himself.
He grew up in southern California in what he calls an “averagely dysfunctional family,” and music became his escape. He dropped out of high school to get away and write and play music, looking for a community of his own. He found that in the alternative music scene, but during that time period started using alcohol and drugs.
“They almost threatened to take over my music, to take over what I cared about,” Ruderman said. “That’s what ultimately led to me getting clean.”
When he was 29, Ruderman started going to a 12-step program, and stopped using. He says it helped him find a different element of the community he was seeking. He reinvested in his music, and started branching out into creative writing and poetry. Participating in one of his first writing workshops, he found links between the workshop and meetings he had attended while in recovery.
“I was at a fiction writing workshop and I was like wow, this is great. People are sharing, and it’s kinda like an AA meeting but people are talking about literature,” he said. “They focus on honesty, they focus on listening to other people, and they focus on writing and getting your ideas out.”
Now, he brings that experience to his students. Class consists of reading and writing together, and sharing thoughts and feelings with the group. On this Wednesday, the group begins with a free write — 10 minutes to get their thoughts onto paper.
Topics are offered up as a springboard. On the board, Ruderman writes the word perseverance. A woman near the back is adamant that the topic should be “whatever you want.” Ruderman says everyone is welcome to write about the idea of perseverance, or anything else on their minds.
Pencils scratch paper and feet tap around the room. The occasional whisper is exchanged between people next to each other. Soon, 10 minutes is up, and it’s time to share.
There’s no specific order as people go around and take turns reading what they put down. Some people volunteer to share right away. Some wait. Some decide not to share at all. The new member of the class in the front row says no — they’ll pass on sharing today.
Around the room there are stories about taking things one day at a time, high points, low points. People talk about things that they look forward to, their fears, their hopes.
Sometimes people will let out an affirmative “mmm hmmm” or nod when something really resonates. At the end of each poem, the whole class snaps.
A good chunk of the class has shared what they’ve written, and Ruderman asks if anyone else would like to read. There is a pause, and then the newcomer in the front row chimes in.
Actually, yes, they will share.
Emily Walker writes for TheReportingProject.org, the nonprofit news organization of Denison University’s Journalism program, which is supported by generous donations from readers. Sign up for The Reporting Project newsletter here.