Pongo Teen Writing

Congratulations on 25 years of success

It was San Francisco in 1976. Microsoft alum Richard Gold was pursuing a Master’s degree in Fine Arts. The summer of love would soon give way to news of Patricia Hearst, Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone. At least the Grateful Dead had resumed touring. But current events didn’t ignite Richard’s passion, volunteer work at a clinic with special-needs kids did.

By drawing upon the teens’ ideas and feelings, Richard developed a process he called “Expressive Therapy,” a collaborative experience that taught them to capture and express intense feelings of rage, neediness, and depression, through poetry. At the time, he was unaware that half of the teens were assigned to the adolescent psychiatric clinic of Children’s Hospital. At the conclusion of his sessions, therapists shared with Richard that his success at teaching the teens to express themselves through poetry had helped where years of therapy had failed.

After Richard completed his MFA and left the clinic in San Francisco, he moved to Seattle and began a career in book publishing. During his tenure at Microsoft, where he was Managing Editor of Microsoft Press, he started The Pongo Publishing Teen Writing Project in 1992. He then left Microsoft in 1996 to devote his efforts to Pongo full time. The Microsoft Alumni Foundation (MSAF) selected Richard for an Integral Fellow Award and grant in 2010, and then a reinvestment grant in 2014.

Richard has steered the evolution of his organization every step of the way.

Pongo achieves its mission through three primary initiatives: teaching teens who lead difficult lives to express themselves through poetry, publishing teen poetry collections, and training others around the world to use Pongo’s methodology. In the past year, Pongo reached a milestone of 17,000 youth who have written poetry and completed surveys on the Pongo web site. A new book of teen poetry, "Above the Water of My Sorrows," written by youth in King County juvenile detention, was published. And Richard even travelled to Amsterdam to support poetry projects that serve Syrian and other refugees.

Doors of Emotion
by a young woman in juvenile detention, age 15 

I’m opening up closed doors Behind one door I find sadness It’s blue, it’s boring, it’s lonely, it makes you cry Behind another door You see happy people enjoying things they like You hate them because they’re happy, and you’re not So you slam the door and move to the next one The next door is terrifying You see guns and drugs and people dying It’s a dangerous door to walk through There’s a door in my heart It’s so full that when you open it Everything comes tumbling down All the frustrations, the joys, the hate, the love Somewhere in there is the perfect life A perfect me

Richard has grown his organization organically. He added four new board members in the past year, hired a development director, and is working closely with several foundations for funding and support. He has built strong relationships with the University of Washington, Harborview Medical Center, and Seattle Public Schools, and his mission now includes an emphasis on social justice. Most youth inside juvenile detention are of color, a significant percentage of youth in homeless shelters are LGBT, and a significant percentage of residents in supportive housing are Native American.

From inside Pongo’s new office in the beautifully restored Washington Hall, a visitor can easily imagine the sounds of past performances by Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, and Jimi Hendrix. But through his office window, Richard sees the stark façade of the King County Juvenile Detention Center. Every day, merely a block away, young kids in lockup struggle to find their way past unfathomable hardship. Those kids remain Richard’s passion.

MSAF is honored to have supported Richard and Pongo. We especially congratulate him on twenty-five years of success, a remarkable achievement of sustainability. He demonstrates to all of us the power of an individual to make a meaningful difference in the lives of others, worldwide.

Article written by Steven Wells, February 26th, 2017