Homeless Literature Anthology to Feature Personal Tales From Cleveland's Unhoused

A new anthology of writing from those who’ve been homeless will explore the nuances, editor Rafiq Washington said, often gone unseen in today’s society. Which help Cleveland’s crisis in some way. “Instead of serving in the soup line, we host a poetry workshop.” Credit: Literary Cleveland

In recent attempts to handle Cleveland’s homeless spike, the city and county have initiated a series of big-picture solutions, big-dollar proposals. Funding youth-targeted outreach groups. Spending $2 million on a “rapid rehousing” program for 150 unsheltered.

Rafiq Washington, in a new project, has in a different way tried to help shed light on the problem and those living without homes: with an anthology of writing.

On Thursday, June 27, Washington, a novelist and editor of the series, will usher in the release of These Words Are Not My Home: Poems, Stories and Essays from the Unhoused, a collection of literature from a dozen voices that have, one time or another, passed through the 2100 Lakeside Men’s Shelter downtown.

Debuting with a paired open mic and reading on the 27th, the anthology, to be published by Outlandish Press, is a culmination of a four-month-long Finding Voice Poetry Workshop at 2100 and Washington’s longstanding interest to publish work from underrepresented communities—to remind Cleveland that the unhoused aren’t just a statistic to be counted.

“We always try to paint with a broad brush with society, but efforts like this allow us to show that society is more nuanced,” Washington said.

He added: “Instead of serving in the soup line, we host a poetry workshop.”

Editor Rafiq Washington (center), and contributors to the anthology to be released June 27. Credit: Literary Cleveland

With some 150 unsheltered and unhoused persons on the streets of Cleveland any given night or day, both the city and the county, and smaller nonprofits, have been increasingly vocal in the past year about how to creatively remedy what many perceive as a homeless crisis.

Washington’s anthology, one could say, fits somewhere in the middle of things: not a policy change or new nonprofit, and not art simply for the sake of art.

Bolstered by a grant from Literary Cleveland, Washington spent most of the winter and spring co-leading that workshop with Lydia Bailey and Annie Holden, coordinators at the Lutheran Metropolitan Ministry, where the readings are held.

Using published poets as kindling—Gwendolyn Brooks, Fred Moten, Rumi—Washington and co-hosts would help steer and provide feedback for a wide variety of self-expression, from personal essays to one-word-per-line poetry. Over the course of the season, Washington handpicked the strongest writing, even typing it up on his computer himself. (Most was written in longhand.)

Washington and Holden’s prompts, and the true-to-life art read aloud by shelter guests like Nate Hearn and Malcolm Prophet, led to a minor awakening for Bailey herself.

“I am amazed at what is written every week by shelter residents—also volunteers,” she wrote in an email. “I’ve never understood poetry better than when it is discussed in this setting. Never thought I could write poetry.”

These Words will have an initial print run of 500 copies, and will be available at the June 27 reading, at Mac’s Backs in Coventry and at 2100. (In exchange for volunteer work or charity, Washington said.) All profits will go back into running the workshop.

The debut reading will be free and open to the public, and will be held at 2100 Lakeside Avenue from 3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.

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