UNDERGROUND
WRITING
Underground Writing is a literature-based creative writing program serving migrant, incarcerated, recovery, and other at-need communities in Northern Washington through literary engagement and personal restoration.
One of the original teaching writers with Underground Writing, A. Muia has facilitated workshops with youth in Skagit County Juvenile Detention since 2015.
Workshops encourage generative encounters with literature spanning the tradition—from ancient texts to those written by emerging writers in the workshop. Honoring the transforming power of the word, we believe that attentive reading leads to attentive writing, and that attentive writing has the power to assist in the restoration of communities, the imagination, and individual lives.
Listen to A. Muia read student work from juvenile detention:
Poem for
balloons of all colors
held in the hands of children
Poem about
how poverty should not be a thing
when so many people are so wealthy
Poem about
loneliness
Poem concerning
why people can’t get along
Poem for
water perfect for swimming
birds that fly overhead and chirp
green surrounding
and overwhelming
Poem asking
why me
Poem about
food to prevent malnourishment
Poem about
socialization
Poem saying
Annabelle, I miss you a lot
Poem to
sister that I don’t get to see
Poem for
brother
Poem about
a near-death experience
crashing my truck
getting adopted
Poem saying
tomorrow is not promised
Poem where
someone says grow up
Poem where
I say it happened, get over it
Poem about
things in my room: clothes, stereo,
drawings from Annabelle
Poem about things in my cell:
books that were recommended
by Annabelle
by M
Skagit County Juvenile Detention
Underground Writing: Skagit County Juvenile Detention, Mount Vernon, WA. Photos by Matt Malyon.