I Am Not a Juvenile Delinquent. Sharon Charde

I Am Not a Juvenile Delinquent

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I Am Not a Juvenile Delinquent: How Poetry Changed a Group of At-Risk Young Women

LCCN: 2020933918

BISAC: SOC032000—SOCIAL SCIENCE / Gender Studies

Printed in the United States of America

Each day, we’re given many opportunities to open up or shut down. The most precious opportunity presents itself when we come to the place where we think we can’t handle whatever is happening. It’s too much. It’s gone too far… There’s no way we can manipulate the situation to make ourselves come out looking good… Basically, life has just nailed us.

It’s as if you just looked at yourself in a mirror and saw a gorilla. The mirror’s there; it’s showing you, and what you see looks bad. You try to angle the mirror so you will look a little better, but no matter what you do, you still look like a gorilla. That’s being nailed by life, the place where you have no choice but to embrace what’s happening or push it away.

—Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart

It’s not like I’m some whole person trying to help the broken people I see along the road. I think I am broken by the injustice I see.

—Bryan Stevenson

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