Runaway Thoughts: Stories by P.O.P.S. the Club of Venice High School

By Dennis Danziger

In 2013 students at Venice High School in Los Angeles formed the first P.O.P.S. (Pain of the Prison System) club, a club for those whose lives have been touched by prison. Many have parents, friends, siblings, uncles and aunts inside; some have had their own brushes with the law. All have stories to tell. Runaway Thoughts offers the stories, artwor

• Language: English
• Publisher: Popstheclub.com, Inc.
• Release date: Dec 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9780692290613

Dennis Danziger

Author and Playwright, Dennis Danziger is co-founder of POPS the Club. After 10 years as a television writer (Taxi, Kate and Allie and many more), Danziger taught English for 25 years in high schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District. His most recent play, The Richard Nixon Sex Tapes, has been produced in Los Angeles and at the William Inge Theatre Festival New Play Lab.

Book preview

RUNAWAY

THOUGHTS

STORIES BY P.O.P.S. THE CLUB

OF VENICE HIGH SCHOOL

Anthology Copyright © 2014 Popstheclub.com, Inc.

Editors: Amy Friedman and Kalliope Panagiotakos

Cover Design: Bob Tinnon and Victor L.M. Demic

Book Design and Layout: Kenny Barela

Cover Photographs: © Eduardo Hernandez

POPS Logo © Eric Winterling

Each writer/artist retains copyright of the work created for inclusion in this volume. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to POPS the club [e-mail].

Eduardo Hernandez

CONTENTS

Introduction

Our Fathers

New Identity by Victor L.M. Demic

Lost Time, A painting by Victor L.M. Demic

Visiting Day by Kei’Arri McGruder

Dear Dad by Iyah Miranda

I Knew My Life Was Different by Dewan Thompson

Just Stay by Miguel Lazaro

Daddy Issues by Leeza Sarmiento

Without a Father by Keino Mitchell

Drawing by Lucy Rodriguez

You Were Never There by Jose Hernandez

Betrayed by Kaelynn Cotton

A Voice by Joseph Estrada

Godfather by Nelvia Marin

Lord Forgive Me by Edwin Noguera

The Day I’ll Never Forget by Alison Urbina

A Poem by Dori Leigh

Where I’m From

Venice is Where I Come From by Joseph Dews

Baby Get Down Gets Down by Joseph Dews

The Life of a Young Thug by Joseph Dews

The Place I Call Home by Joseph Dews

Release Date by Joseph Dews

I Come From by Fernando Garcia

Revisiting by John Rodriguez

My Story by Alex Weston

Hell by Jonathan Angel

Three Cultures by Lukas Braun

Where I’m From by John Flores

Now and Then by Ramiro Blanco

Where I Come From by Jerry Stokx

Streets by Keino Mitchell

The Street by Guillermo Plasencia

My Family by Randy Chavez

Everyday Life by Randy Chavez

Mom, Dad by Randy Chavez

Their Sentences and Ours

What I Need to Say by Cristal Nieto

Uncle Don by Anonymous

Diary Entries by Alyssa Huerta

My Big Brother Oscar by Lesley Robles

Writing to Someone Who is Locked Up by Chelina Vasquez

The System by Charles Horin

Trouble by Joslyn Stevenson

Irreplaceable by Idalia Munoz

I Didn’t Learn the First Time by Keino Mitchell

Black and Blue by Electra Johnson

Photo by Eduardo Hernandez

Fear by Electra Johnson

Left Behind by Ernesto Ponce

Inside by H.K. Witham

Homeboy Industries by Tony Lopez-Figueroa

Letter to my Brother by Bianca Lopez

Soldiers by Tony Lopez-Figueroa

In and Out of My Mind

Escape, with drawing by Lucy Rodriguez

Awaken by Victor L.M. Demic

Three Poems by Derian Bonilla

My Prison of a Mind by Kei’Arri McGruder

Silently by Alyssa Huerta

Alone by Raphael Rodriguez

I Will Because I Can by Jennifer Lopez

Theme for English B by Jayvon Murray

Hungover by Nelvia Marin

Life is a Large Place by Alex Weston

This Won’t Be by Alyssa Huerta

Drawing by Victor Gallegos

2:15 AM by Nina Calderon

After Ernie’s Show by Joslyn Stevenson

Seven by Tony Lopez-Figueroa

Experimenting by John Bembry

Cracks in the World

At Seventeen by Cierra Ingersoll

The Life I Got by Edwin Noguera

Her Choices by Qahirah Smith

Reality, Part 2 by John Bembry

Crash by Derian Bonilla

Free Daniel by Celia Ramos

Close Call by Randy Chavez

Struggles of a Spic by Sandra Nunez

What I Saw That Day by Rodrigo Raygosa

Painting by Lucy Rodriguez

Lost by Lucy Rodriguez

Belonging

Living Poetry by John Bembry

Room 120 by Karina Cuevas

Hope by Jasmine Scheib

Listening by Alondra Magallanes

My Mom by Larissa Rios

Prison and Me by Brittany Weight

My Passion by Khaila Simm

From Sorrow to Understanding by Annabelle Granados

Full Circle by Anastasia Stanecki

After the Storm

Drugs by Kei’Arri McGruder

Lesson Learned by Salvador Sixtos

I Noticed by Edwin Noguera

My Changed Ways by Idalia Munoz

My Family is Dark by Alex Weston

Ode to the Feminine

I Wonder by Edwin Noguera

What is Life? by Luis Nunez

To Mom by Uriel Perez

Drawing by Victor Gallegos

Original Beings by Kei’Arri McGruder

This Beautiful Life

The Student by Tony Lopez-Figueroa

Photo by Eduardo Hernandez

American Me by Eduardo Hernandez

Mind, Body and Paint by John Rodriguez

Before the Change by John Rodriguez

Hard Days by Derian Bonilla

Forgiveness Denied by Victor L.M. Demic

74, Preferably by John Rodriguez

Spoon-Full of Wisdom

Letter to P.O.P.S. the Club by Spoon Jackson

Where I am From by Spoon Jackson

Beyond by Spoon Jackson

Afterword by Amy Friedman

Author Bios

Photo by Eduardo Hernandez

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Stop Talking and Listen

Friends and colleagues who read my students’ work often ask me this: How do these teenagers produce such deeply personal work? How are they able to dig deep and reveal their innermost feelings, share their core stories?

There’s a simple answer. It’s this: Stop talking and listen.

I learned this lesson in my rookie teaching year at Crenshaw High School in Los Angeles. Every lesson I presented in my first two weeks was greeted with boredom or outright contempt. Finally Monday morning I asked my students to describe a memorable moment they had experienced over the weekend.

After a few minutes of writing, Clarence, a 17 year-old senior who looked big enough and tough enough to play nose guard for USC, smiled, raised his hand and read:

Friday after school, I was chillin’ with the homies in Lorenzo’s crib. We were passing a blunt. James was rolling some fatties. And I was shaking my bones, trying to hit my point when we heard banging on the door. It was the Po-Po. So everyone grabbed his gatt, his herb and his dead presidents from the pot and we shook the spot. Later on, we come to exchange a few volleys with Five-Oh, but no one ended up in dead or in County. So it was all good.

Clarence nodded toward his classmates who erupted in laughter, perhaps from his account, perhaps from the frozen expression on my face.

At that moment a multiple choice test flashed through my mind. I could:

Call security; B. Find a job other than teaching; C. Pretend I hadn’t grasped the meaning of anything he wrote and call on someone else.

Instead, and I don’t why, I asked, Clarence, could you interpret that for me?

He began to explain that it was a story about the weekend where he and his friends were hanging out at Lorenzo’s house shooting dice and getting high when the police raided. So they scattered, had a shootout with the cops, yet no one was injured or arrested. Just another day in the ‘hood.

In my teacher credentialing class, no one had taught us what to do when a student confessed in a single paragraph to committing multiple felonies.

So I did what I’ve since done countless times in the classroom; I improvised.

I looked at my amused students and said, Okay, here’s the deal. It’s clear we speak different languages. And there’s no way I can teach you what I’m supposed to teach you about English until you teach me your English. So this is what we’re going to do…

I asked them to write down all the words they used in daily conversation with their friends, to define those words and bring them to class. Over the next two weeks I asked this of all five of my classes, and from this we gathered and printed out a 24-page lexicon.

I learned that my students knew about 50 words for marijuana, two or three dozen words for money, and a dozen or so for good looking girls or guys. I learned that bomb, fly and phresh were good things. We spent two full class sessions trying to differentiate the Westside from the Eastside of LA and what it meant to live in which part of town.

What I learned from my students during these weeks and over the next 21 years of teaching was that they love language and equally love to express themselves in personal ways—with stories, essays, poems, rap and in music and the visual arts.

But in order for them to reveal themselves, they demand respect. They need to

know that their stories and creations will be taken seriously. They need to know their voices will be heard. They need to know that their lives—no matter where they live and who they know and love—matter. Because their stories, raps, diaries, photos, letters, drawings, photographs, songs and poems exhibit courage, intelligence, honesty and self-respect.

And they send these artistic expressions out into the world with a sense of

trust—trust that you will judge them on the merits of their work and on who they are deep inside.

Dennis Danziger, Co-Founder

P.O.P.S. the club

Gather yourselves! Banish the word struggle from your attitude and your vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.

We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

- Unnamed Hopi elder

Hopi Nation / Oraibi, Arizona

Our Fathers

New Identity

-Victor L.M. Demic-

I am imprisoned

Not physically

But mentally

I was too young

It barely affected me

They say I look just like my father

Well I want a new identity

I want to be like the man who raised me

Not the criminal who misled me

The chains he has on

Are the same chains in my memory

But memories fade away

So my past is a blur to me

I can’t sleep at night

My consciousness is on to me

I close my eyes

But I toss and turn constantly

I try to wipe off everything that bothers me

I’m afraid to become someone I don’t want to be

But it’s hard to run away

when your reflection is your enemy

Victor L.M. Demic

Visiting Day

- Kei’Arri McGruder -

I walk through the big silver doors,

ready to be searched.

I’m only eight,

but I’m already used to being patted down

and suspected of breaking the law.

They think I may have a knife

or a gun so they can try to break out and make a run.

He takes his magic wand and waves it around me.

My turn is done.

I walk down the hall and I can feel all the negativity.

I see the faces of the blue men

hoping for someone to come and love them.

I look up and see this tall man. I scream, Daddy!

I go up to the window and see his sad face.

Dear Dad

- Iyah Miranda -

I called you today because once again I haven’t heard from you in a while.

As I listened to you repeat the same excuses, I thought, Why am I reaching out to someone who wasn’t in my life for nearly ten years? Why am I the one who has to be the adult here?

Our conversations are repetitive.

And now I’ve become immune to your disappearing.

But today my mother and I got into another argument over you.

I often feel that because you screwed up as a man, father, son and brother I am blamed for your actions. And being your child doesn’t help.

I remember the time you didn’t call me on my seventeenth birthday, the one birthday I thought you wouldn’t miss. But you did.

How do you disappear from your