James Elsaesser, PPM

James has facilitated poetry workshops in his community in a variety of settings, including serving as Poet in Residence for Upward Bound at East Stroudsburg University, and as a teacher of GED English.

Since 2013, James has taught ESL and facilitated poetry workshops for School of Leadership, Afghanistan, (SOLA), Kabul. SOLA is the only all-girls boarding school in Afghanistan. Through a grant provided by IPM, the SOLA students recently completed their first anthology of poems, Part of Me, Part of My Soul, in June 2020.

He also facilitates poetry workshops of healing and empowerment at Domestic Abuse and Sexual Assault Intervention Services, (DASI) in Newton, New Jersey, where he also serves as Community Outreach Specialist. These workshops were originally funded by The Institute for Poetic Medicine. In 2017, through a seed grant provided by the Institute for Poetic Medicine, the RiseUp! Poetry Project was created. Since then, it has been funded by the NJ Department of Criminal Justice, working with DASI.

RiseUp! meets weekly and the poets have spoken at numerous public events. The group has completed Leaves, their third anthology of original, healing poetry. The poets of RiseUp! are important voices in our community, as they continue to speak up and speak out in the cause to end sexual and domestic violence.