Unseen voices: How a shelter program, new poetry anthology channel thoughts of unhoused Clevelanders

A writer’s three-decade career of social and cultural action have combined with a former bookseller’s 15-year-old poetry program at a Cleveland men’s shelter and a local nonprofit grant to produce a collection of 25 poems from the city’s unhoused individuals. RA Washington, who assembled “These Words are Not My Home: Poems, Stories and Essays from the Unhoused” spoke to The Land about expression, ambition, intent and the program that led to the book.

When West Side Cleveland-based creative writer R.A. Washington applied for Literary Cleveland’s four-month Amplify Fellowship in 2023, he knew he wanted to assemble a compendium of writings from Cleveland’s unhoused population, but he never imagined the amount of press he would attain upon its release. 

Having practiced for over three decades as an independent poet, author and co-founding soundsmith of sonically and socially progressive band Mourning [A] BLKstar, Washington is more content using his voice as a megaphone to broadcast underserved voices, as opposed to elevating his own words. Case in point: the 15 men who published a collective 25 pieces in the new anthology, “These Words are Not My Home: Poems, Stories and Essays from The Unhoused.”

“I thought that it would be a population that would probably have something to say,” Washington explained. He said it will serve as the first in a series of quarterly anthology releases that will continue seasonally, starting in winter 2024.

Washington first heard each piece of work read aloud in Annie Holden’s Finding Voice Poetry Workshop, which has been held each Wednesday from 1:30 to 3 p.m. for the past 15 years at the Lutheran Metropolitan Ministry’s (LMM) emergency men’s shelter at 2100 Lakeside Ave. in Asiatown. 

Holden, a former bookstore manager turned caseworker, started the weekly sessions in 2009 as a form of creative therapy after she started working at the shelter. Also lending guidance to Finding Voice at that time were retired social worker Julie Michelson, poetry therapist and published author John Fox, and Methodist preacher Jack Schierloh.

A grant from the Institute for Poetic Medicine helped pave the way for the program to obtain initial supplies and later publish three chapbooks. Chapbooks are small and inexpensively produced methods of publication that writers use to spread their work with local audiences.

“Once cats (in the program) saw that it was legitimate and got published our attendance has gone up a bit,” Washington added.

Finding Voice’s initial three publications were also the beacon that first made Washington decide to expand his philanthropy from the shelter’s soup kitchen to its poetry workshops. The Literary Cleveland grant furthered his engagement; now, he and Holden take turns overseeing weekly sessions with the planning assistance of Lydia Bailey, a volunteer coordinator at the shelter.

“People may think that individuals who are unhoused would not give a hoot about poetry. Think again!” Holden began her four-paragraph intro to the book. “There is something special that happens in the (workshop) room as they write their own poems then read them out loud. It takes great courage to put one’s feelings on paper and even more guts to share them with strangers.”

Temporary housing, permanent words

To Washington, the collection serves more as a series of rubber stamps, a timely record of passage as opposed to a vehicle to jumpstart contributors’ writing careers.

“It’s transitional housing, people are in and out,” Washington said when describing life at the men’s shelter. “(The book is) the only record you have that cats were there. You might not even see the guy (that wrote for it) again. There are definitely people who came in for one workshop, wrote one piece, and then when we had the launch party for the book were nowhere to be found.”

Even before readers reach the first poem, the book resonates as raw and insightful, the typical author forward replaced by a keen stoicism that Washington and Holden have cultivated separately through years of working with people experiencing crises.

“I would have preferred, had I had the money to just do it myself without the fellowship, to just do it under the radar,” he added. “It’s just, I don’t have a good relationship with any of those  self-promotional elements…. What’s (the) fascination with whiteness and western ideology where the only way that this career path and this life path that you choose can be acceptable if it’s successful. Why would I want to have the same monikiers of success as a stockbroker?” 

Whether he’s using paint, markers, words or moodily ambient keyboard clicks alongside drum tones, Washington takes a do-it-yourself approach that often borders on keep-to-yourself when it comes to advertising, a desire fueled by personal ethics and the collection’s subject matter.

The majority of work here is deeply personal, but there’s not a single narrow line that connects all of the dots. Some poems deal directly with the struggle to obtain and remain in housing; others, like Percival Dike III’s soliloquy on page 24, grasp for the respect and emotional buoyancy supplied by a loved one. On pages 17 and 18, Stephon Saulsbury fires out a strong single stanza that transitions from a third-person description of living without a house during a city night into a first-person request for understanding and simplification.

“There’s always creative cats no matter what’s going on,” Washington said. “So for me this was an opportunity to mind part of the population that this (work) came from. I think there’s a lot of synergy between a person’s experience and someone who’s not living their life like them. 

“It creates empathy, an opportunity for first responders to have some (understanding) on what they’re doing… And it feels nice to be published. That’s the case for anyone. So, in the middle of some crisis or an ongoing issue, you have a little surprise.”

The pleas for personal amnesty from suffering land in readers’ brains as hard as the self-confident outcries like the last, hopeful, forward-looking stanza Nate Hearn tendered on page 47:

“Sooner or Later

I will come to understand life

And come around.”

Nate Hearn, “These Words are Not My Home.”

Talking shops

If the poetry, short stories and other small-form writing that comprises “These Words are Not My Home” seem deeply personal and ungarnished, it’s because they were plucked wholesale from Finding Voice workshop sessions the day they were written. Washington did not edit them.

“Over the years I’ve done book groups and creative writing (classes) to get people into some other creative formats,” Finding Voice co-founder Holden said. “This is something about poetry that it’s another kind of creative writing. Guys don’t need perfect grammar and spelling and punctuation and all that stuff. Poetry is so open-ended and forgiving.”

The technical and creative liberties inherent to poetry essentially delete all barriers to entry; one only needs a writing utensil, a vessel for words (typically some sort of two-dimensional wood pulp derivative) and a solid thought or idea. That’s basically how Finding Voice operates: “Guys write poems, and then they read them aloud,” Holden insisted.

As far as Holden is concerned, the ease of entry component is one of the most appealing aspects for the rotating residents of the Lakeside shelter where she works, many of whom enter after being battered with socioeconomic barriers for their entire lives.

“(Listening) is absolutely key in that whole place,” Holden explained.. “Here you are in an environment that’s chaotic and noisy. We have 400 beds filled every night. It’s a huge place. And these folks are 18; we got guys all the way into their 80s. We have every age group and every kind of trauma. The predominant message is the miracle of being listened to.”

Marrying that freewheeling sense of unrestricted artistry with the act of outside validation can also lead to moments of great catharsis, like Andrew Davis’s melancholic but inspired piece on page 39:

Shall we not flee?

-Gwendolyn Brooks

I can’t leave myself in want

Desire is just too strong

Lifts me petty

Stirs my wrong

My eyes wake to greet

Hands fear they can see

What i made them do

In the dark

Regret hangs heavy

And grief is my whole back

The lengthy shadow

Evil in me

Ruled by base

Inside a need.

Andrew Davis

Binding down

For the fifth time in his career, Washington approached Cleveland-based Outlandish Press in order to assemble, print, bind and ultimately publish the anthology. All 25 poems are inked on Fox River paper featuring a hemp finish; the out-of-print stock material’s worn texture and speckled overlay give the impression one is holding something handmade, homely and of great weight. The final product is a 7 inch by 5 inch, glue-bound 48-page chapbook. 

It’s a more refined version of Washington’s first chapbook, a folded sheaf of 11 inch by 8.5 inch printer paper titled “For Me, With Those Before in Mind” published by a former poet-mentor, but the goal is the same: to highlight good work without elevating it to the professional pedestal and everything it comes with. Even as Washington attempts to skirt praise, Holden and others can’t help but shovel it upon him.

“RA Washington… has brought his own, powerful, distinctive voice to the mix, sharing his experiences and particular poetic perspective,” her introduction continued. “He has enriched the process and sparked new ideas in the participants. He provides a much-needed outlet, a physical manifestation, a printed record of their work.”

Washington, meanwhile, doubled down on the volume’s importance without stealing the spotlight in his anthology intro, stating, “The poetry and stories we’ve collected illuminate the complexities of life on the margins, and challenge perceptions and ignite empathy. Each word, each sentence, each piece of prose is a testament to the resilience and creativity that thrives in even the most challenging of circumstances. It is a reminder that, despite the barriers that society erects, the human spirit cannot be silenced.”

The first few pages of the book also describe the Amplify Fellowship, which uses funding from the Cleveland Foundation and the Ohio Arts Council’s ArtsNEXT initiative, in similar terms: “Our goal is to provide writers on the margins with pathways to become arts leaders in the region, and pilot innovative new program models for communities that have been historically underserved.”

LaToya Kent, “Crawl on yer belly” from Me:You’s album “Field Tapes In Der Trash”, released April 21, 2023It is now readers’ responsibility to determine whether Washington succeeded in that goal, but with future short form publications set to collect some of the work produced at the Finding Voice workshop, a decade-plus initiative based on growth and creativity has evolved to a new point. As Mourning [A] BLKstar vocalist LaToya Kent sings on the track “Crawl on yer belly” (produced by Jah Nada and Laura B. and stemming from the bandmates’ 2023 Me:You project Washington helped spearhead):

You put the seed in the Earth, it becomes the tree

And then the tree grows up and it sprouts the leaves,

And then the leaves stretch out and they bare the fruit,

We eat the fruit

We eat the fruit

We eat the fruit

And then we grow and we grow and we grow

And then we grow and we grow and we grow some more

And then we lay down and we become the Earth

We are the Earth, we are the Earth…

LaToya Kent, “Crawl on yer belly” from Me:You’s album “Field Tapes In Der Trash”, released April 21, 2023

Roughly 100 copies of the limited, 500-edition run of “These Words are Not My Home” are available for $10, either by calling the 2100 Lakeside shelter at 216-566-0047 and at Mac’s Backs bookstore in Coventry Village. The City Mission of Cleveland, Ohio and Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless offer avenues for volunteer assistance within and around Cleveland. The Lutheran Metropolitan Ministry’s volunteering opportunities are also extensive, as are those presented on the City of Cleveland’s website. Readers interested in Annie Holden’s poetry workshops should call the phone number above.