Students Focus on Writing the Troubles Away
Photo courtesy of WisconsinWatch.org

Students Focus on Writing the Troubles Away

After being on a hiatus, the Lincoln Hills Poetry Project, a student organization at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, has resumed working with troubled youth at the Lincoln Hills Juvenile Detention Center in Wisconsin.

Leah Trempe, junior English education major, is the vice-president of the organization.

According to Trempe, the organization was forced to go on a hiatus because of a lawsuit that the detention center was facing, but they are now able to resume working with the center.

Since the hiatus, the organization has been taken over by new members and consists of approximately 17 students.

The goal of the organization is for UWSP students to visit the detention center and do workshops that focus on utilizing poetry as a creative expression. Trempe said that they have not yet gotten the chance to visit the center, but plan to start doing the workshops on Sundays come February. The goal is to visit the center on a monthly or bi-monthly basis.

Trempe explained that the group does not pressure the youth that they work with to share their past experiences.

“We’re not trying to be their counselors or their therapists or anything like that. Anything that they are disclosing with us is

Photo courtesy of jsonline.com

Photo courtesy of jsonline.com

probably in the context of poetry,” Trempe said.

As an English education major, Trempe was inspired to join the organization in order to make a positive contribution to the community and promote creative writing.

Nate Hawlish, senior English major, is the president of the organization.

Hawlish hopes to have positive interactions with kids and engage them to create meaningful work. He plans to approach the experience with an open-mind and has shied away from making any assumptions about the kids.

“When I was younger, I was what might be considered one of the troubled youths. I was in and out of the foster system for a number of years. Coming from that point of view, I have some understanding of what they are going through,” Hawlish said.

Hawlish is optimistic that doing poetry workshops will help the youth address some of the personal insecurities that they might be dealing with.

“Outreach is important and hopefully we can help them in some way however small or however large that is. I don’t go in with the expectation that this will be life altering, things get better through a series of small incremental steps,” Hawlish said.

The organization is still looking for more members and is open for students of all majors to join. The group meets at 7 p.m. on Wednesday nights in the Collins Classroom Center in room 233.

Caroline Chalk

Reporter

cchal845@uwsp.edu

About pointer

Avatar

One comment

  1. Avatar

    I found this post very meaningful. Students are well disciplined now. Reaching out to them is one way to help them. Whatever situation happened, they can deal with it. I admire the teachers for being optimistic. They surely know how to get the student’s focus.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*