On Tuesday, December 17, Alliance held a ceremony to mark the 25th Anniversary of our Creative Writing Workshop. The participants wrote collaborative group poems before breaking for lunch, then watching videos and slideshows about the poetry workshop’s rich history, and holding a poetry reading by participants and staff.
Speakers included Alliance CEO Sharen Duke, original workshop facilitator Gerry Gomez Pearlberg, and Allen Zwickler and Caren Levine—Trustees of the Phil Zwickler Memorial and Charitable Foundation Trust, which has generously supported the CWW for over 20 years.
The workshop has been a staple of Alliance’s holistic healing. In 1999, funders scoffed at Sharen’s suggestion that writing poetry and other forms of creative expression could be beneficial to people living with HIV/AIDS. But we have seen throughout the decades how poetry has transformed lives, and Tuesday was a celebration of our workshop, and poets past and present. Thank you to the Phil Zwickler Memorial and Charitable Foundation Trust for your amazing partnership.
Photos: David Nager/Alliance
