Charity Strong
Charity Strong was born and raised in Oak Park, Illinois. She attended Oak Park and River Forest High School and graduated in 2016. She has always had a love for writing, especially poetry, but it was cultivated under her mentor, Peter Kahn. She continued her education at Triton College in River Grove and graduated in 2019 with her associates degree in Psychology on a pre-med track. Her dream career is to become a neurosurgeon specializing in pediatrics. She is currently attending The University of Illinois at Chicago awaiting her bachelors degree in Psychology. While going to school to become a neurosurgeon, she has never stopped writing nor lost her passion for writing and is currently working on publishing her own book of poetry.
The impact of poetry and the spoken word club
Wow! What has spoken word club/poetry done for me? When I started writing poetry in sixth grade, I thought it was only poetry if the words were rhythmic. I didn’t realize words could have rhythm without rhymes. When I realized that, it changed the way that I wrote. That was one of the first things that spoken word club taught me. I started writing as an escape from reality. Spoken word club taught me not to only let it be my escape but let it be the beginning of my journey of healing. At such a young age I was going through so much mentally. My mental struggles became physical and I began to self harm. By the time I reached my freshman year, I had my first suicide attempt. By the age of 17, I made another one. When I failed both times, I wrote about which then helped me be able to talk about my struggles out loud. That’s what poetry did and does for me. It allows me to bleed on paper freely so I can have those tough conversations openly. Poetry gives me a certain peace that no other thing or human being can match. Spoken word club allowed me to feel like I wasn’t the only one out there who felt the same way. From PK crossing out my whole poem except two lines and telling me to create something from it, to teaching me how to be leader of people you have many differences with, and being my stepping stool for years of mental recovery, spoken word club changed my life. I’m forever grateful for the power of poetry and the growth spoken word club cultivated from it.
Top favorite poets or lyricists
Sarah Ruhl, Rupi Kaur, and Michaela Angemeer
Connect with charity ig
Writing Prompts
Write about a time you forgave yourself
Write an ode to a part of yourself
Write about a time you almost gave up on yourself, but you persevered