The Institute
for Human Communication (HCOM)
Creative
Writing & Social Action Program
Program Description
Skills
a Social Action Writer Needs
Examples
of Student work
Syllabus
Creative
Writing Faculty
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"Witnessing Welfare:
the Voices, the Lived Experiences"
Social Action Writing, Spring 1998, HCOM 432 (formerly
431)
"Art is a form of critical inquiry."
- Amalia Mesa Bains
"My
work is rooted in the notion
that art can provoke social change."
- Willie Birch
"Art educates. It
educates through the heart."
- Kira Carrillo Corser
"I
think that the job of poetry, its political job,
is to refresh the idea of justice, which is going
dead in us all the time."
- Robert Hass, Poet Laureate,
1997
Since March 1997, I have
worked for the New York City Dept. of Sanitation, sweeping up
streets and picking up garbage. The garbage includes broken glass,
nails, syringes, needles, used diapers, used condoms, used tampons,
and dead rats. We also encounter a lot of half-empty containers
with strange-smelling liquids in them and a lot of dirty, discarded
clothing, which may be infested with germs. There is nowhere
to wash your hands before lunch...I always worry about germs
and often I do not eat...I am worried about bringing my polluted
clothing into the house and endangering my son's health as well
as my own...The constant threats by the supervisor to sanction
us for leaving our route and the inhumane working conditions
make it seem like we're on a chain-gang instead of in a work-experience
program. I have been told -- and I believe -- that this work
will not lead to a job.
- Sylvia Ruff, Work Experience Program, New York City, from Harper's,
Nov. 1997
Examples of Student work - Syllabus - Creative Writing Faculty -
Other HCOM Faculty
The Institute for Human Communication
California State University Monterey Bay