Step into the Circle by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Blair
Published: 2019-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

PHOTOS BY SAM STAPLETON

Over the years, she’s made hundreds of visits to schools, sharing her love of words and helping children understand that writers aren’t magical beings from somewhere “out there,” but folks just like themselves who must arrange and rearrange their words countless times before they appear in print. She often shows the children a tightly rolled scroll made from dozens of drafts of one of her books. She’s taped the manuscript pages end to end, so when the students unroll it, it wraps around the room several times, a paper trail of try and fail and try again, giving them permission to do the same with their own words.

[Her writing studio is] a place of contemplation, a place where words, both written and spoken, bubble up and hang in the air so that those who cross the threshold seem to breathe them in.

In 1993, George Ella wrote a poem called “Where I’m From.” It began: “I am from clothespins” and went on to examine the things, large and small, that shaped her. Over the years, the poem has been used as a writing prompt in schools, prisons, and rehab facilities. During one school visit, an angry teen said, “It’s none of your business where I’m from.” George Ella responded, “So write about that.” When the girl read her poem to the class, “her anger scorched the paper,” George Ella recalls, “but I watched her feel the power of her words. She felt heard.”

“Where I’m From” has unlocked memories and called forth emotions in places far beyond its Appalachian roots. “Teachers have used it in all fifty states and around the world in places like China, Norway, Croatia, Indonesia, even a refugee camp in the Sudan,” George Ella says. “It’s out there doing its work. I’m in awe of where it’s gone.”

Self-discovery remains at the heart of George Ella’s work, both as a writer and a teacher. Her cozy writing studio in Lexington, Kentucky, contains her writing desk, a comfy couch, a rocking chair, musical instruments, and a Hopi prayer circle made of stones. It’s a place of contemplation, a place where words, both written and spoken, bubble up and hang in the air so that those who cross the threshold seem to breathe them in.

“In the Hopi tradition, when you step into the circle, the leader says, ‘I see you,’ and you respond, ‘I am here.’ People today don’t feel seen or heard, particularly in Appalachia. That’s what we, as artists, can do—help people find their voices and feel heard.”

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