Here are three submissions from the workshop Our Write to Re-member, presented on Friday September 12th in Christchurch, New Zealand. They emerged as an experiment in the workshop.

Childhood
by Lee Delmas

Childhood sux
well sometimes
When things get out of hand
and little ones are lost
with the noise and all the strain
Childhood, childhood, childhood
So very far away
The dregs remain to remind me
to be kind and respectful today
Children may be loved but
it sometimes doesn't suit
for little ones to be too old
with important things to do
Children are undisciplined,
selfish rude and loud
Not worried about their loved ones
when the child is weak
childhood is a time of weakness
dependence and innocence

To Sing it in Writing
by Ludmila Fields Kopel

The music in the hallways of our conference place drifts towards me and my awareness rests in it. I hear a voice of a jazz singer. The texture of her sound is like that of dark and dense honey. I cannot distinguish the words of her song, yet the timber and resonance of the sound tells a story. It is a heartfelt and dark story of love and partings. And yet, it contains notes of hope, dreams and possibilities.

Free to Express
by Maria Dolenc, Australia

My deepest longing's to be free to speak up even when I feel in conflict and not sure if I will be received with approval from others or my inner critic.
Free to express my own judgment, what I believe, what I think, what I feel and for what I stand.
Free to express my truth even when it is very different from others and not "shrink" from criticism.
Free to express my unconnected, scattered self and not to think too much before I express myself.
Free to express who I am at a moment.
Free to be "Silly, immature, unwise and ordinary".

And now a poem created at the AAGT Conference Workshop "Our Write to Remember: Reconnection With Our Inner Writer" in St. Petersburg, Florida, November 7th, 2002:

The one who holds the colours, the one who sings the songs
by Judy Robertson, USA

Why can't I explain how I feel?
Why won't anyone listen?
And when I speak why do you criticize me?
Don't you see, I care
I get so lost, so alone...everyone goes on.
They don't care and yet I keep speaking
out and out and out

and so I create
I paint
and try to put words together with my images

I want you to see me
I want you to look.

I'm really not that bad.
Really.

Paint and paint
the colors explode and meld and blend
and the stories are told
and my heart is set free.

The stories I tell no longer
hide in the recesses of my mind.
They don't hold me back.
They speak,
I listen.
I hear.

The hell with everyone else.

I need to express myself,
to be myself,
to love myself
It's far greater that what you think.

I hold on to the child in me
The one who holds the colors,
the one who sings the songs
the one who dances to the music
and let her know
that she is free.
she is free.