I Am Not a Juvenile Delinquent: How Poetry Changed a Group of At-Risk Young Women (Lessons in Rehabilitation and Letting It Go)

Letting It Go―A Bereaving Mother, Delinquent Girls, and the Power of Rehabilitative Poetry Therapy

"Anyone who has suffered and cares about our world (that probably includes everyone) will be moved and changed by this book.” ―Elizabeth Lesser, author of the New York Times bestseller Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow 

Experience the poignant real-life story of how author Sharon Charde was saved by her relationship with incarcerated young women at Touchstone, a residential all-female treatment center in Litchfield, Connecticut. And, learn how these young women―confined for crimes such as using drugs, truancy, assault, prostitution, and running away―were rehabilitated by their poetry teacher.

Letting go of grief and loss by writing poetry as therapy. I Am Not a Juvenile Delinquent is a book for fans of the acclaimed movie Stand and Deliver. After the death of her child, a grief-stricken psychotherapist, teacher, and writer volunteers as a poetry teacher at a residential treatment facility for “delinquent” girls. Here, their mutual support nourishes and enriches each other, though not without large quantities of drama and recalcitrance. As Sharon and the girls share their losses through weekly writing, they came to realize their unlimited potential and poetic talents.

Healing from trauma. Healing can come in surprising ways across age and social class, as it did for both the girls and Sharon. But what happens when Sharon finally grasps that the most challenging experiences are the best teachers? Narrated in five parts, the book also contains poems written by the girls, as well as excerpts from their writing, Sharon’s son’s writing, and her own.

If you have read books such as Why are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?, For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood, The Freedom Writers Diary, Between the World and Me, So You Want to Talk about Race, or Reviving Ophelia; you will love I Am Not a Juvenile Delinquent.

Sharon Charde has edited and published an anthology of poems from her years of workshops with at-risk girls, I Am Not A Juvenile Delinquent, which won the PASS award from the National Council on Crime And Delinquency. In 2012, BBC radio broadcast "Four Trees Down From Ponte Sisto" on Radio 4, an hour-long adaptation of her poetry collection, Branch In His Hand (Backwaters Press, 2008), and related poems and reflections. It is a requiem for her dead son, written by Gregory Whitehead and performed by Anne Undeland. In the fall of 2005, Sharon Charde won the first Litchfield County Inge Morath Award, given for significant social impact in the arts, and in April 2006 she was given the “Making a Difference for Women” award, given by Soroptimist International, Waterbury (CT) Chapter. In July 2009 “The Sharon Charde Poetry Garden” was dedicated at Touchstone in honor of her ten years’ work there with the girls. She has won numerous poetry awards, including first prize for three chapbooks, honorable mention for another and finalist for a fifth. Bad Girl At The Altar Rail (Flume Press 2005), Four Trees Down From Ponte Sisto (Dallas Poets Community Press 2006), After Blue (Finishing Line Press 2014), Incendiary (Arcadia Press 2015), and Unhinged (Blue Light Press) have all been published. Sharon Charde was a licensed professional counselor, now retired, with twenty-five years of experience working with families, women’s groups, couples and individuals.