Processing the Weight of Grief through Poetry
By Audrey Hills
Audrey Hills is a Pongo’s spring 2025 intern.
“A Crack in the Road,” by a young person at Echo Glen Children’s Center, captures the complexity and gravity of losing a loved one.
Childhood trauma is felt disproportionately by black and brown youth, and by young people who grow up in poverty. However, many young people who experience trauma and loss do not receive appropriate mental health treatment. Black and brown youth are more likely to be criminalized for their responses to unresolved trauma such as difficulty learning, acting out, and self-medicating with substances.
One type of trauma that is especially complex is experiencing the loss of a loved one. A report by Evermore, a national bereavement advocacy organization, found that 90% of systems-impacted
youth have experienced loss of a loved one, 2/3 of which has been at the hands of violence. There are so many considerations that go into processing loss like feelings of helplessness, anger, fear for oneself and others, regret, and more. Without the tools to untangle this web, it can become overwhelming.
At Pongo workshops, young people are given the space to sort out these feelings and experiences, as well as to dictate their own narrative. The author of “A Crack in the Road” demonstrates clearly and artfully many layers of their grief such as feeling empty, lost, and blaming themself. Though this young writer makes the writing process sound easy, we promise that writing like this is no easy feat!
While Pongo is not a replacement for mental health treatment, creative expression has been found to improve mental health outcomes. Poetry is something that an individual can have access to wherever they go, long after they have crossed paths with Pongo. If you’re interested in reading more on this topic, you’re invited to check out the article, “From Pain to Expression: The Transformative Power of Poetry for Grieving, Systems-
Impacted Youth”, written by our Co-Executive Director, Nebeu Shimeles, and published here on Evermore’s website.
About Audrey Hills
Audrey Hills serves as Pongo’s spring 2025 intern through the University of Washington’s Undergraduate Community Based Internship Program (UCBI). In that role, she serves as a Pongo poetry mentor at the Child Study & Treatment Center, in addition to managing and supporting various administrative, communications, and community outreach projects.
Audrey believes in the healing power of poetry and all forms of art, and that poetry is a tool that can help us explore ourselves, our lives, and imagine beyond ourselves. It’s one of the few places where there are no rules. For young people who have encountered hardships and barriers, poetry is a way to understand and overcome that can be kept in their back pocket no matter what.
