 Good afternoon. That sounded incredibly loud to me. How was that? All right. Okay. Welcome, everyone. And also to those of you who are taking part virtually today, thank you all so much for being here to hear selections from, this is a mouthful, anthology 2021 poetry and nonfiction by the St. Joseph's Orphanage Restorative Inquiry Writers Group. The writers will also be reading new works in progress. The greater project of which the Writers Group is a part is an initiative of the Burlington Community Justice Center. Our gratitude to that organization as well as to two others whose generous support has made the publication of the anthology possible. The Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services and the University of Vermont Medical Center Community Sponsorship Program. Our gratitude. Thank you to Mark Wenberg, who has so beautifully been guiding the inquiry. Your tireless, deep commitment, strength and compassion have been incredibly inspiring. Thank you to Phoenix Bookstore for collaborating with us on this event. And finally, thank you to the Writers Group. Gene Clark, Debbie Jevrey, Sheila Grisard, did I say that right? Caitlin Hoffman and Michael Ryan. You are so honored and honored. Thank you. And gracious. Thank you for your deep intelligence, your openness and trust, and for the courage and strength you've shown in bringing this book into the world. And for your generosity and heart, you've made it clear again and again that your purpose here has been to help ensure that the atrocities you've endured and continue to live with will not be inflicted upon others. I thought it would be fitting to leave off because I want to leave plenty of time for everyone to read. With an offering from, with some words of two great minds, these two individuals represent the two worlds that have so organically dovetailed in our workshop process. First offering is from Dr. Judith Herman, a psychiatrist who, if you've not encountered her work, is best known for her contributions to the understanding and treatment of individuals who have suffered childhood trauma as set out in her book, Trauma and Recovery. The primary response to atrocities is to banish them from consciousness. Certain violations of the social compact are too terrible to utter aloud. This is the meaning of the word unspeakable. Atrocities, however, refuse to be buried. Remembering and telling the truth about terrible events are prerequisites both for the restoration of the social order and for the healing of individual victims. And I'll end with this from the poet, the former poet laureate of the United States, Louise Gluck of Vermont. Writing is a kind of revenge against circumstance, bad luck, loss, pain. If you've made something out of it, then you've no longer been bested by these events. Writers, and here's where I hold, created this miracle to hold in your hands and to share with the world. Thank you. So we're going to start, going to start with Gene, Gene Clark, and he's going to read a beautiful piece that he wrote called Anthem. And do I have this right that these are song lyrics? Okay. Gene, several of Gene's song lyrics are in the anthology and thought this would be a great way to open, a cheering way to open. Check. Okay. I just want to make sure you can hear me. Okay. This is called the Anthem. We are the children of St. Joseph's. We need our voices to be heard. We hear all of our truths and take us at our word. You didn't believe us then, so please believe us now, for we'll tell you all our truths if you just believe somehow. You're disbelieving us, you're disbelieving us as added to our tears, for we've lived all these truths for oh, so many years. We are the children of St. Joseph's. We need our voices to be heard. We hear all of our truths and take us at our word. So we're going to raise our voices for everyone to hear in spite of all your doubts, in spite of all of our fears. So please believe us now, for our pain is so sincere, for we've lived with all this pain for oh, so many years. Michael Ryan is going to read the first of two pieces he'll be sharing today. The first is called Orphan and it's included in the anthology. Orphan shows the elegant neutrality tinged with irony that's woven through all of his, your writing. In my life, I have suffered many types of traumatic experiences. The worst of these occurred at St. Joseph's Orphanage. I suffered physical and sexual abuse there. At the hands of those, one should be able to trust the most. My first memory of the Orphanage was when we were surrendered. I watched my sister being marched to another wing. My brother and I held one another's hands. We were told to follow the nun to the boy's dormitory on the other side of the building. We were each given a number along with a pillow, sheet and blanket. My number was 25 and I was placed on the little boy's side. My brother was number 35 and he was placed on the big boy's side. So we were all separated from one another in the lone. That was when I learned how to fear. The sisters of Providence who ordered us around mostly came from poor and uneducated homes in Canada. They had no special training. For many of them, the best you could hope for was casual indifference. The rest were as mean as the nest of vipers. The breaking of the simplest of rules meant punishment. They liked their little tortures. Have you ever been made to kneel with a hard bean under each knee? It's not as much fun as it sounds. Five minutes feels like a lifetime. 15 minutes later and you don't think you'll ever be able to walk again. Another little pleasant tree they enjoyed was forcing you to stand holding your arm straight out from your side with a heavy book in each hand. A nun would eye her pocket watch. You didn't want to drop the books before the time ran out. If you did, you got hit on the back with a blackboard pointer. You could receive these punishments for as little as failing bunk inspection running on the stairs or whispering in church. That was a biggie. Before St. Joseph's, I'd never been to church, so I hadn't known that whispering was against the rules. The nuns were not only creative with their tortures but with what they deemed a punishable offense. I lived therefore in a constant state of fear. By the time I left the orphanage, my number had been changed to five and never let the numbers they assigned me to find who I am. I think somewhere in their minds that was their intentions. To take the only thing we had left, our sense of self, our willpower, but I have refused to surrender. Thank you, Michael. Debbie Hazen, who is not an honorary member but an actual honored member, has joined the group recently and proven herself to be an extremely fluent writer. It's been this amazing outpouring. As part of that and part of our newest project, which will soon be culminating in a reading of theatrical writing, Debbie has written an intriguing and very multi-layered scene. First she's going to act briefly as the narrator and then after a very brief pause, she'll recite a monologue in direct address to the audience. Debbie describes her piece as follows. It is the story of a young girl named Donna at St. Joseph's orphanage as told by her sister Debbie. The scene involves a play within a play. Donna is performing in Our Lady of Fatima. Fatima, thank you. A play about the Virgin Mary who appears to three shepherd children in a cove in Fatima, Spain, in the early 1900s. Donna says her lines one by one until each scene ends. In between each act, she has to change her costume because she's in every skit. Donna and her brother Dane are singing Bicycle Built for Two while riding a bike across the stage. Afterwards, she needs to hurry to change back into her Lucia costume. In one scene, Donna is meant to cry. She covers her face but will not make those sobbing sounds. She cannot bring herself to act, even act this out. She is vowed never to cry in front of the nuns. Another girl backstage hiding had to cry for her. Donna gets through the scene and finishes the play. The audience claps and cheers. I see Donna, you did great. You see, Donna, for the whole six years that we were in the orphanage, wouldn't cry in front of anyone. She only cried into her pillow at night and nobody knew. Donna only said the only control she had in her life was to hold her tears. The nuns tried so hard to break her but they never did. They torture her in so many ways. Sister Madeline told all the girls at Donna had the devil in her and if they could make her cry, he would leave her. They all called her names and threw things at her. The nuns picked on Donna every chance they had. Once Sister Madeline and Sister Claire brought us both up to the attic. I was barely six. Donna was eight. They locked me inside of a trunk. They told me that there was bats and snakes and spiders in there. They were going to get me. I was crying and screaming hysterically. Donna kept trying to run to the trunk to let me out but each time Sister Madeline would just grab her by the hair and tilt her face back just to see if she had tears yet. Donna, finally I stopped crying and I just went very quiet. That was the one time Donna almost cried. She thought she had killed me because she wouldn't cry. She was afraid I had run out of air. The nuns may have thought that too because that's when they finally let me out. When Donna was nine, Sister Claire brought her into her bedroom. She told her that she had an ugly body and boys would do bad things to her when she got older. Well, Sister Claire had a remedy for that. She tried to bind her genitals with hairpins. Even then, Donna didn't cry. Another nun whose name I can't remember ran a butter knife under scalding hot water until it was really hot. Then placed it flat on Donna's arm to see if she could cry. Another of these evil sisters squirted onion juice into her eyes but of course the nun couldn't tell if she was crying because there was juice in her eyes. Donna doesn't talk about the orphanage. She's haunted by those memories and fights depression every day. Even though she has the most wonderful family in the world, she knows they need her and she loves them beyond the norm and that's reciprocated. Still, depression seeps in. Until this day, she's tortured by her abusers, even though they're all dead. Donna has taken care of everyone her whole life, but she doesn't know how to take care of herself, her emotional self. She deserves a world. Donna deserves happiness. She deserves pure joy. How can I, her sister, give that to her? Donna has always taken care of me to this day. She still tries to take care of me. Dear God, can you help me to help her? Yeah, we did. Sheila Grisard is going to read a piece called Day One, June 1962, St. Joseph's Orphanage. Sheila's proven herself to be a natural storyteller and in this piece, she brings us eye level with the child she was, a child looking out with innocence as she tries to make sense of an incomprehensible and terrifying new world. This is a new work in progress and it is one where Sheila has elegantly picked up at the exact moment where she left off in childhood memories, which is part of the anthology. Sister Superior comes out of the huge mansion and walks slowly toward us. My sister Cheryl and I are still swinging higher than ever. As we clutch on tightly to the chain links, we try to flip over the top bar. Come on, Billow Girls, Mother Superior calls to us in a very odd way. She is dressed completely in black with a veil covering her entire head with a white band across her forehead. An enormous set of black rosary beads hangs down from her waist and it makes lots of noise when she walks. As we slow our swings down, I wonder, was this creature born this way? Does she have ears and hair? I am Sister Superior. It's time to go inside for a physical, she announces. She is so mysterious. She speaks with a French accent and she's very difficult to understand. As she takes my hand, I notice a simple gold ring on her finger. I mentioned something about it and with a stern frown, she says, I am married to God. I work for him. We walk inside to a room called the front parlor. It is an enormous room with a shiny wooden floor. All the ripples of shine are straight in a row. The wooden tables are also very shiny with a doily under each lamp. As we enter, I notice an enormous circular decoration which I think is a large penny. I later learn that the words around it say, God will provide and that the picture at the center is Jesus. It reminds me of the pennies my sisters and brothers and I used to place on the railroad tracks. We stop in front of a small metal door with two buttons. One is an arrow up and one is an arrow going down. Mother Superior presses the up button. The door opens. Here at the top of this tiny little closet is a smaller version of the same penny like the decoration with the same words God will provide. The door closes and we started to go up. I know right away that the Mother Superior who works for God is taking Cheryl and I up to heaven. I am very excited but a little scared. The Mother Superior continues to stand very rigid with her hands folded together in front of her. She only speaks when I ask a question. She never smiles and acts somewhat like a soldier. Maybe she is bad, I think. Well, the door opens and we enter another long corridor. It leads to a room which is very simple with six beds all in a row with white sheets and a white pillow positioned perfectly in the center at the top of each. We're greeted by Sister Angel of Mercy who is dressed much like Mother Superior except in white. The only features visible are her eyes, nose and mouth. Her forehead, ears and most of her chin are covered with a starched white cloth. Her robe goes down to her feet. I can't see them but I think she must have some. She also has a long set of rosary beads that jingle when she walks except hers are white. She smiles at me and I instantly know that the sisters dressed in black are bad and the ones in white are good. As she smiles she sweetly tells Cheryl and me that she is a nurse and needs to check our hair and skin. She gives each of us a gown to put on. She also speaks funny English and is difficult to understand. She's very friendly and relaxed unlike the one in black. She takes a small comb which has many, many teeth and combed slowly through my hair. Occasionally she inspects the comb cautiously with a serious look. We must have passed the inspection because nothing more was done to our hair. She then gives us each a skirt and tells us we need to take a bath. This is a new experience for me. I'm used to taking a bath with my brothers and sisters but now I have to go into the bathtub alone with a skirt on. We are never to expose ourselves to anyone. The bathroom has six private little stalls. Three have tubs and across the hall three have showers with curtains. As I sit in the tub watching my skirt float in the water I notice how simple everything is. There isn't a speck of dust anywhere. Just a tub and a stool. Sister Angel comes in and washes my hair. She tells me how to wash my ears and neck and feet. She gives me thorough instructions on how to bathe. She tells me I am number three and my sister will be number eight. She crosses my number off so I don't need to bathe after dinner. From this date from this first day when my mother leaves me until the age of 13 my life seems to be on an hourly schedule and I'm always third in line. My sister Cheryl never stands beside me again but I can see her whenever I turn around. She's in the eighth place. Caitlin are you reading the monologue first? Caitlin Hoffman is going to read first untitled monologue and after that Man in the Moon which is a poem unfolded in Caitlin's anthology piece Radio of Life. Her untitled monologue is a moving evocation of her arrival at the orphanage. Last week Amy Brabson a celebrated actor joined our Zoom group to give a reading of Caitlin's monologue. Each writer will be paired with an actor in this manner in our upcoming reading so you can send us off into that. Whoever you are listening to me I'd like to take you on a whoever you are listening to me I'd like to take you on a journey. Do you remember when you were 12 or 13? Imagine yourself as that child once again. Who was important to you? What was important to you? Then someone tells you they are taking you away from home and putting you in a Catholic orphanage. You entered the enormous brick building with one suitcase containing all that you have left from your former life. A non-dressed in black greets you and the woman who brought you followed by another dressed in regular street clothes. She tells you she is your case we're going to follow her. There's no warm greeting. Then you're walking behind the woman up the stairs. With each step the air becomes thicker until you feel as if you're floating as your soul has left your body. The further up you go the more you fight the urge to turn around and run. Looking down the stairs you see yourself at the bottom your soul your inner wisdom pleading with you to turn around to flee. You could turn her up the stairs until the woman opens the door on a third floor. You're brought to a room where two nuns are speaking Canadian French. There are clothes on a large table and a long closet filled with various sizes to the left. The nuns introduce themselves and tells you to address hinting you some clothes they have chosen for you. One of them puts in a number inside the fabric of each piece 14. You're told this is your number. When they call it you are the answer. They take your suitcase. You are never to see this contents again. You are now left with only feelings and memories. One of them shows you around the floor. You reach a room with beds along the walls. She points out yours. She asks you a question you don't understand. Her heavy French accent confuses its meaning. Suddenly she's about to slap your face. You don't understand why she's about to slap your face. Do you remember the most horrible food that you've ever had to eat and even the thought of just ingesting a just stomach turn and we want to chuck it up? There are six kids at a table. One of them says it's their job to make sure everyone eats everything they're given. Failure to do so in failure to inform the nuns means that the nuns will gladly help by forcing the food down your throat and do not throw up. This is a sign of science and you'll have to lick up the vomit even off the floor. If the modern-day child fails to inform the nun that child will be eaten. She has incurred worse punishment than the offender. Milk, which you've always hated, is served at every meal and even worse are the puddings, especially bread pudding. Just the smell makes you want to hurl. A neat type substance called blood sausage. Every meal becomes torture as you learn to get and keep everything down. Bedtimes arise as your body believing you are finally safe begins to relax. You notice yourself becoming overwhelmed with feelings. Your eyes begin to tear. You bite your pillow trying to hold those treacherous images at bay. Some of the kids that warn you do not feel. As your mind and body struggle to keep themselves from betraying you, you realize what the real four letter word F word is. It's feel, F-E-E-L. If you feel, you're fucked. Waking up the screams of children, little girls, literally been dragged out of bed from their slumber and beaten by two nuns was traumatic and terrifying. I know let myself fall asleep until I was certain the nuns had already gone to bed. One night I snuck into the bathroom and wrote this poem to the man in the moon. Shine on man in the moon, for your light will shine and never cease. Your world is lonely, cold and barren. You have gloom to cope. You could just watch over as people here are north. Help being a part of us without knowing the feelings of being alive. Help me man in the moon, please help me. Help me be like you are. Just watch, but not nor feel what is happening. Thank you, Kaitlyn. So we're going to return to Michael's piece called Freedom Behind Bars and Gene Clark, who's played a crucial role as a member of the group, figures into this piece. One morning, as Michael shared a bit about his experience in prison, Gene encouraged him to write about this period of his life so the seed for the second piece of Michael's perhaps was planted during that conversation. As a young adult, I had problems with authority figures. The orphanage staff had raised me to have no other choice. You had four kinds of staff, some were therefore paycheck only and had no care for children or for their concerns. You had some who were very cop-like and authoritative. There were some who treated children as if they were toys. They were joyful and they laughed a lot, but this was always at the expense of a child. They would incite the other children to bully one another. Finally, there were the young adults who had gone through college with plans to go into social work. They believed they had good places in their hearts for children. Fresh out of school, they had lots of ideas on how children should be raised, but those theories worked on paper and not in person. After my orphanage experiences, I traded one form of institutionalization for another by joining the Navy. I enjoyed the work and the traveling, but ultimately, because of the way I had been raised, I was not a good candidate for military service. After three and a half years, I was discharged for swearing at a superior officer. I received an other than honorable discharge. This was just a foretelling of what was to come. When I got out of the Navy, I began using marijuana to self-medicate and to support this addiction, I started to deal. For about a year, I was making the living. I was under the radar, then a customer gave me the run-around over $30 bag of pot. He kept saying he'd pay me. This went on for about a month. I finally managed to track him down. It was at this moment my life changed. Henry was waiting for me as I sat down to order. While we were eating, I asked him what was up about the money he owed me. He told me he had no intention of paying and there was nothing I could do about it. I instantly felt a raw heat and picked up my steak knife. I stabbed him and decided to neck. He went into shock, ran out into the parking lot and collapsed. I went into instant disbelief. I hadn't known I was going to do it until I had already done it. I waited and shocked myself in the parking lot until the police arrived. They placed me in the back of a squad car. This was routine for them, just another day at the office. That night was the first night among many I would spend behind bars. In that time, I had to learn on my own how to deal with my own anger. Mostly I did this through avoidance, keeping myself out of any situation in which I would be forced to be angry. Five years into my sentence, I met a guard who was a practice in Buddhist. He was very self-possessed and quiet. He didn't make an issue of things. He would just let you know what you needed to do and you would listen. For him, his job was not a power or control type of situation. He would discuss different Buddhist writers with the very eclectic teaching styles, such as Ajahn Shah, who was a particular favorite of mine. The thing that struck me about him was how he embodied the Buddhist concept of right livelihood. I thought that being a prison guard made this concept questionable, but he made it an honorable profession. The guard would talk to me about the four noble truths of Buddhism and helped me understand them. These are the truths of suffering, the truth of the cause of suffering, the truth of the end of suffering and the truth of the path that leads us out of suffering. I was intrigued. All of this got me thinking of how I wanted to live, which way I was headed and if this was how I wanted to live my life through a revolving prison door. I resolved to take drug rehabilitation and anger management classes and I completed them. After I had been out of trouble and compliant, I was moved to a minimum security facility and spent my last year there. I wish I could remember his name. I'm sorry I can't. I guess I remembered the teachings though. He had a very stoic personality. He was a Marcus Aurelius kind of guy, very straightforward in everything he did. His kindness towards me was almost impersonal. You know how Buddhists are, very neutral. He didn't play favorites, yet he spent time with me when he could have ignored me. I do remember the moment it all became clear to me. I was walking back from the library and all of a sudden a light bulb flickered out into my head. That's when it dawned on me that there had to be a better way than the road I had taken. I resolved then and there to turn my life around and that's what I did. That's a poem that's in the anthology and as well as a monologue called Just a GTO. I also want to mention that what Michael Ryan just read is excerpted and he's provided a lot more detail about the Buddhist teachings and more in the unexcerpt version that's in the anthology. Well it's fitting that Debbie Jeffery should close out the reading. She's the person who dreamed up the idea of the writer's group and then spoke of her dream to Mark who made it happen. So Debbie it's because of your voice that this group exists. Thank you. This sister this snake is one of Debbie's poems that she shared in the anthology and you'll see throughout her work that she's a master of extended metaphor and like many writers she works in various forms in her second piece Just a GTO is a new artfully rendered dramatic monologue that grew out of an exercise where the group wrote in the voices of objects from the past. Excuse me I'm gonna have this sister this snake perched upon a wooden pew well within my little view sad a snake tongue lashing its warning eye scanning narrow pupils quickly moving to and fro draped in black and white she kept her prey within her sight and waited spring loaded when would she strike I peered around the corner just to have another look that's when the rat went that's when I heard that rattle that's when my body shook poisonous venom ruptured my skin millions of tears I held deep within but the snake she grinned joyously recording yet another win slithering back the neat little ball as if she never struck at all but I felt the pain it has yet to wane Jesus Jesus on the wall please save me from this evil woman who heard your call the cross that hung on collared neck the one that swung with every step did it not remind her of her choice to walk with the lord to be his voice still her french tongue thrashed in her heavy hand bashed until I complained I came to believe I was evil I was mean in the darkness of those days she tried her hardest to have her way to break me down body and soul to make me half not whole instead I chose to seek the light to find life's pleasures and it's delights I smile when I want to cry and I pray to the Lord with all my might I thank him every day that I did not that I did not crumble that I did not break beneath the the sinister hand of this sister this snake okay here we go just a gto they call me a goat a rag top goat to be exact but in reality I am nothing but a rusted a rusty 1966 Pontiac gto owned by a young man who has no direction and nowhere to go the only thing this band knows is how to press hard on my pedal on my gas pedal rarely does he break I am worn out and my parts are tired or rotted it is not about my looks to him it's all about speed so he keeps my engine clean and tuned and humming where is he going so fast why is he running what is he running from in my back seats sit three small children a boy and two girls how I love those children when they play the energy changes and we are happy for a few for a few moments my man isn't sad the youngest of his children pokes holes in my back window which is made of plastic and is cracked and brittle from the new england son he hollers at her but to be honest I don't mind it gives the little curly-headed girl a better view of the mountains as they fly by I wish I wasn't just a rusted old goat so I could give this man and his family a different ride a more comfortable ride a more comfortable drive to a more comfortable life but the man just keeps me heading north on north avenue we stop park right in front of the shadow of an enormous an enormous ominous horrible evil brick building it towers over us God is the son I see him wipe his eyes I see him touch the dashboard jesus they all pile out of me all four of them and in an hour only one returns and he drives south and he drives he drives south on north avenue without ever looking back not even a glimpse in my rear view mirror does not want to turn on my radio for the only sound he wants to hear is a cool verbat air whistling through the holes in the back window thank you writers for your incredibly powerful and impactful readings and thank you to all of you for being here to experience this work we hope you'll join us for a book signing in the lobby books can also be purchased at phoenix bookstore and as well as online if you're not local if you're listening from afar you can purchase the anthology on amazon and barns in noble thank you so much for being here and thank you writers