Homeless Turn To Writing And Lend Their Unique Experience In A Literary Magazine

The aptly named "Pilgrim", a literary magazine is turning homeless into writers. The publication provides the homeless with a pen and paper along with a topic on which they have to write a few lines. Interestingly the magazine has extracted some really impressive writeups so far.

As the Pacific Standard reports, this noble initiative has been undertaken by the Cathedral Church of St. Paul situated on Tremont Street in Boston. There is a gathering of twenty to thirty writers every Tuesday morning in the basement of the Church. The group known as the Black Seed Writers Group writes poems, stories, memoirs, prayers and protests for the magazine. There is no particular writing style prescribed by the magazine and it results in individual and unique artistic voices.

This initiative was brought to the fore by James Parker, one of the editors of the "Pilgrim" and cultural column writer for the "Atlantic". He got this idea after returning from his own pilgrimage organized by the Church authority in 2011. Currently, the magazine is working on its 422nd issue and it has worked with 150 odd writers till now. In this noble mission, Parker has volunteers in the name of Kate Glavin, a student of MFA at the University of Massachusetts, a diocese intern named Libby Gatti, and James Kraus, a graphic artist.

According to the Magzter, Parker believes that homelessness is a kind of pilgrimage "It is a condition of material and occasionally moral emergency, and thus a place where the world reveals itself under the pressure, or the pouring in, of a higher reality." Parker first gathered the people in a nearby café in downtown Boston from where the group name originated. Soon the number of writers increased and the group needed to be relocated to a bigger area, that is when they were allotted the basement of the Church.

Every week new writers join the group and Parker provides them some open-ended cues, to begin with. No formal training is given and anyone who is homeless, recently housed or moving into a new accommodation is welcome to join the group. Within a week of joining, the work of the writer gets published the next week, making every one of them a published author.

James Parker handpicks the best pieces of the published writing and gets them printed on the pages of the "Pilgrim". The printing is done by the Church administration and circulation of a few hundred copies of the journal is ample to provide the ink and paper for the writers. In 2014, the "Pilgrim" got its own press named the No Fixed Address Press. The "Pilgrim" continues providing a unique opportunity for the homeless people of Boston to voice their opinions and insight which otherwise remains unheard most of the times.

TagsHomeless, Pilgrim, Literature, Writer, author, Magazine, Publishing