SANTA CRUZ (December 2009) - Dennis
Morton leaned across a table at Santa Cruz County’s Juvenile Hall reading aloud
a paragraph penciled by a 14-year-old boy. The topic
was the boy’s first drink and he wrote that the alcohol had felt like “medicine”
for how it made his problems fade away. Morton, a teacher and radio-show host, nodded his head slowly at the
paragraph’s conclusion. “That
was a very full story in six lines,” he said. “How did it sound to hear what
you wrote?”
The boy,
dark-haired and built like a linebacker, dropped his head. “It
sounded good,” he said shyly.
Exchanges like that go on each week in juvenile detention facilities across
the San Francisco Bay Area. They’re at the heart of a program called “The Beat
Within,” which aims to promote literacy and provide positive recognition for
teenagers behind bars. Each week, the program distributes a
thick newsletter featuring writing and artwork from incarcerated teens, along
with essays from men and women doing harder time in prison.
Now a
score of writers – from bestselling author Karen Joy Fowler to novelist Laurie
King – are pitching in to help keep the program alive in Santa Cruz’s Juvenile
Hall.
Morton came
to the beige, concrete-block hall off Graham Hill Road 10 years ago and is its
only paid staff member. His Santa Cruz grocery store had gone bankrupt and he
had turned his life in a new direction, focusing on poetry and teaching. “I had
resisted doing this work (at Juvenile Hall) for a long time,” he said. “But within a second or two of standing
in that room, I not only knew I could do it, but I would love the kids.”
Indeed,
the admiration was palpable between the lanky 66-year-old and the seven kids who
perched in hard plastic chairs around him on a recent Thursday afternoon. One boy
teased Morton, saying he planned to nickname him “Dennis the Menace.” Another said he’d heard Morton’s Poetry
Show on KUSP 88.9FM and knew it was Morton “’cause I recognized your laugh.”
Morton
announced the day’s writing topics, which ranged from “The Real Meaning of
Christmas” to “My First Drink,” but the discussion that afternoon ranged far
and wide – from genealogy to slant rhyme and the definition of the word
“etymology.”
Sitting at a low table, a 15-year-old girl with long, dark
hair read a poem she’d written during the session, prompting a bark of laughter
from Morton when it was over. “Why are
you laughing?” the girl demanded.
“I
laughed because it was such a good poem,” Morton said with a huge grin.
“Most of their pieces are raw and
rough,” Morton said earlier, sitting in a downtown Santa Cruz coffee shop. “It
reflects a lack of education that most of the kids suffer from.” Some can
barely read or write. “But
when I come across a kid who’s a natural, what a high for me,” said Morton, slipping
into the story of a boy in the program’s early days whose poem had won first
place in the Santa Cruz County High School Poetry Competition. The boy, said Morton, is now married,
has two children and is in the Special Forces stationed somewhere in the Middle
East.
Many of
the kids with whom Morton has worked over the years have lived through
violence, abuse and poverty. “I
find them to be kids like any other kids, who behave like anybody would if
they’d been in their shoes,” Morton said. His job,
he believes, is to not only open the kids up to the power of words, but to
demystify writing and show that there are adults in the community who care
about them.
It’s
what attracted Jeffrey Bidmon, division director for Santa Cruz’s Juvenile
Hall, to the program, which was started 14 years ago in San Francisco and now serves
700 teens under the umbrella of New American Media group. “I’m a
believer in literacy skill-building on all levels,” Bidmon said. “To be able to read and write is one of
the pathways to find a new way in life.”
The
program, he said, also fits in with his philosophy of helping teens find
success by helping them develop warm relationships and values within a boundary
of rules. It is part of Santa Cruz
County’s unique approach to the juvenile justice system – a program considered a
model in the U.S.
Jill
Wolfson, a Santa Cruz writer of young-adult fiction and author of the book
“Somebody Else’s Children,” volunteers each Friday night with The Beat
Within. “As a writer, I know what writing brings
to my life,” Wolfson said. “It has
the potential to open the world to people.”
She listens to the teenagers, offers
suggestions and reads their work. Sometimes, she’ll even take dictation if a teen is reluctant to write.
Morton
remembered how Wolfson worked with a boy accused of a brutal murder, agreeing
to write down whatever he wanted to say because the teen wasn’t allowed to have
a pencil or a pen that could be turned into a weapon. The boy wanted to tell the story of the violence and abuse
that had filled his life.
And on
the days he was on lockdown, Morton said, Wolfson would stand outside the boy’s
room and write down the sentences he shouted through the door.
A
fund-raising drive for Santa Cruz’s The Beat Within program is underway. A score of respected authors, from
novelists to memoirists to poets, are donating signed copies of their work to
benefit the program. For $20,
donors will get a thank-you copy of The Beat Within. For $50, donors will receive a book signed by one of the
donating authors. For $500, donors
will not only get a book, but brunch with the author. To find out more, visit http://
beatwithinsantacruz.blogspot.com.
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