Pongo Writing Resources for Troubled Teens

As Pongo Teen Writing Project launches their 16th year of helping youth to express difficult feelings through poetry, they also continue to offer a wealth of resources for those working with young writers, especially in similar populations as Pongo’s focus – teens who are in jail, on the streets, or in other ways leading difficult lives.

Pongo provides writing activities and other resources for teachers, counselors, and advocates working with teens.

The Pongo Project Journal is a regularly updated blog of youth writing and advocate experiences. Here are some of the most recent posts:

Approaching the Trauma, Not the Crime (by Alex Russell, about his Pongo experience in juvenile detention)

Love Is a Useless Puppy (Pongo Prize poetry, about a young woman’s love for a boy who treats her badly)

Cops (about police officers who came to understand their own unprocessed trauma from violence and death)

Thea (about a young widow who uses writing to deal with grief and isolation, and to describe a transcendent joy)

Thanks for the Rose (about a gift from the women at Mission Creek Corrections Center, at our emotional finale)

Shaun (about the ways one volunteer’s religious beliefs inform his work with Pongo)

Good for You! (about Pongo teens and caring)

Loss, Love, and Ambivalence (about Pongo authors’ role as our teachers on deep matters)

A Prize Poem (first winner of the Pongo Poetry Prize, about a young woman’s deep need for love)

Relationships (about a writing activity for the women at Mission Creek Corrections Center)