Connecting Chord: valuing kids, community relations

Connecting Chord is in its third year as the poetry workshop that brings police officers and youths at risk together for a week to write and reflect, and ends in a public performance. This year's program culminated March 12 in a performance at Port Townsend High School, and according to Port Townsend poet Christine Hemp, "It was better than ever."

Hemp is the facilitator who spends the week encouraging all of the participants to get their thoughts on paper and further refined into poetry. "I'm so proud of them all I could just burst," says Hemp.

Both cops and teens read their poems onstage, and for all three years, the evening program has included a musical number to end the evening. "This year's musical number was a tune they wrote - complete with two electric guitars and one of the cops on bass. Need we say more?" says Hemp.

As a returning officer to the program, Polizzi has seen both short- and long-term benefits of his program participation in terms of his work as a police officer. Polizzi has also taken on the role of selling the workshop to his fellow officers. He says it's not just a touchy-feely kind of program. The workshop offers a clear, tangible purpose in regard to training police officers in community relations. "It's not necessarily what you think of in terms of police work," he says.

Polizzi describes Hemp as someone who comes into the program with enthusiasm and passion for writing, and then addresses all of the participants as if they were artists. Her expectation is that during the week, the work they produce will be worthy of scrutiny and presentation to the public.

"When I was in high school, " says Polizzi, "I was never treated as someone who was going to write something significant and as someone who has something to say. There's an art of conversation and dialogue [in the workshop] that the kids may not have had any exposure to. We're writing about things that are relevant to the kids and sharing things about our lives. Kids get an opportunity to compare and contrast and reflect, 'Where do I want to be?'"

For all of the participants, the continued support of local businesses such as the Pizza Factory and Subway, which provide food during the week, and the city government that makes it possible for the officers to participate, and the kind of culture Chief of Police Kristen Anderson has created in the department are appreciated and valued. And, says Polizzi, "It provides an opportunity for kids to make some changes in their lives."

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