Len Siddhartha, writer, musician, PA.
Esther Helfgott's warmth and enthusiasm regarding all things writing are contagious. The atmosphere of her monthly reading series "It's About Time" are among the warmest memories I have, as both participant and audience, of my years of living in the Seattle area.
Peggy Sturdivant, journalist
The writing workshop for women with Esther has filled a need in me. Although I have been writing for years, and thought that I had been dealing "just fine" with issues of grieving, it turned out there were more layers trapped below. The small supportive group with its continuity have allowed me to go places I never could have ventured into alone.
Claire Tangvald, writer
The 12 minute writes, seeded by Esther's thoughtfully-chosen poems, were my favorite part of Poeming the Silence. It was nourishing to be with other women -- especially these particular women. I found a sense of quiet strength among us -- acceptance, understanding, empathy without pity, unusual depth. Allowing what is. In stillness. And laughter. And thoughtful consideration.
John Akins, Poet, Vietnam vet, WA.
Since working with Esther, I have gotten poems accepted for publication. Before, nothing. My voice, my style are the same, but my message is more concrete, and I am more productive. If you want to grow, I recommend working with Esther.
George Cox, President, Alexander Hamilton Friends Association
The Hamilton Leaders Academy, sponsored by The Alexander Hamilton Friends Association, is an annual leadership program for high school student winners of The Alexander Hamilton Citizenship Achievement Award. It is held on the campus of the University of Washington.
A major activity at the Academy is the preparation by the students of a personal development plan (PDP) that incorporates college and career planning into an overall unified plan. The plan is prepared in two parallel workshops: PDP Structuring and Inquiry through Poetry.
Plan goals are developed in the PDP Structuring session. The Inquiry through Poetry workshop helps students broaden their intuitive skills that are so essential to the achievement of meaningful goals. It is taught by Seattle poet, Esther Altshul Helfgott. Dr. Helfgott asks students to reach deep within themselves to uncover joys, pains, frustrations, failures and achievements. This makes the process personal and the PDP more meaningful. Most students are amazed at the results. Dr. Helfgott helps students "own" their future rather than just produce a classroom exercise.
Crysta Casey, Poet, Seattle
"Esther is honest and straightforward and will tell you what she thinks works and doesn't work, plus she gives creative suggestions as to how to make your writing work. She has a fine attention to detail with a love of language. Esther understands the necessity for revision and the patience needed to do this without taking the spontaneity out of the work. Without imposing her own voice, she believes in helping the writer develop his or her individual voice to its fullest potential, i.e. continuing to grow as long as the person is living and writing."
Erminia Passannanti, Teacher, Writer, Oxford, UK.
"I never met Esther in person nor have I spoken with her over the phone, yet I can feel her warmth and even imagine the way she speaks. My friendship with her is one of those magic internet encounters that allows you to believe in the power of words to effectively convey ideas and foster understanding of others in dialogic form.
"I write mostly in Italian, yet I also write in English. I asked Esther, via e-mail, to help me improve the linguistic texture of my essays, and she was always helpful. Our working process was effective, not merely for the instrumental aid that she provided me, but also because we were attuned to poetry as a way of establishing meaningful relationships across frontiers and languages. We accomplished this humanistic goal through the sole channels provided by high technology.
"Esther believes in the function of poetry within society. She breaks through barriers. Her passion and her ethics reach her audience no matter how artificial the medium. Her intellectual liveliness allows her to operate in Lyotard's postmodernist archipelago without losing her soul. She seems to be proving with her work over the internet that we can trust the freedom that the new technologies grant us."
Charlotte Houck, Poet, Seattle
"I took a "Writing the Body" workshop with Esther in 2002; it yielded six strong poems. She gave me excellent advice on line breaks, enjambment and transition. She is a wonderful teacher and treasured friend.
"I have attended her "It's About Time Writers" monthly poetry readings for a number of years. It provides a forum for poets young and old, experienced and inexperienced, featuring a talk on the writing craft, three poets and an open mike. Through this series Esther has made me feel part of a community of poets. Her encouragement and acceptance has helped me find my voice. I have had a few poems published, but the real joy that she has given me is the confidence to keep writing.
Marie E. LaConte, Writer, Medical Technologist, Wisconsin
"A serendipitous internet search brought me in contact with Esther. ... Her suggestions served to sharpen the focus of my writing, and to underscore the unique quality of my story... Esther knows well how to honor and develop the qualities that make a particular story memorable. She never inserted herself into my work, rather, she coaxed the work to speak for itself."
Ann Lynch, Writer, Connecticut
"Working with Esther is like forming a friendship. She grabs your attention and brings you into her. She addresses you one on one and approaches you as if you are a partner.
Denise Calvetti Michaels, poet, psychology teacher:
There was a healing nature to Poeming the Silence. We acknowledged those places in our lives where we were silent by writing about them & naming them & sharing with others, when we felt comfortable to do so. For me, places of silence include: my father in a care facility; a mid-life woman in relation to her children & grandchildren; naming what brings me joy; finding sanctuary. The camaraderie of other writers created a safe place to explore aspects of our lives that we'd ignored & avoided. Poeming the Silence provided me an opportunity to anchor myself to the writing process.
Collin Tracy, MFA in Fiction Student, U of Alabama, Tuscaloosa
"I met Esther through a summer course called "Institutions, Surveillance and the Writing Life" at Hugo House in Seattle. I found her a welcome paradox: warm yet unflinching, experienced yet fresh. She was instrumental in helping me return to my own writing life, a life which had been sorely neglected.
Ellen Shaman, Social Worker, Seattle
Esther brings a combination of safety and risk taking to my work. She fuels my fire and my creativity. She is a skilled nurturer of process. She is prepared. She listens. She is flexible to change. Her feedback is clear, gentle and motivating.
Carolyn Cox, social worker, actor
Working with Esther in her Poeming the Silence class is truly a gift I give to myself. Gathering on Monday nights with a group of intelligent and creative women from all walks of life led and nurtured by Esther, we learn to take risks with our hearts and with our pens. A chance to go inside ourselves and tell parts of our story. Thanks Esther. Can't wait for the next class to begin! Not only is she encouraging, she celebrates artistic expression, and affirms me as an artist.
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Heather Schaub, FamilyWorks Family Resource Center & Food Bank, Seattle
Esther Helfgott facilitated a two-hour writing session with teens from Orion Youth Center, a multi-service, drop-in facility for homeless youth, ages twelve to twenty-one. During this initial gathering, teens were encouraged to brainstorm on the issue of hunger. Then they wrote on different levels of hunger, including hunger for security, love, and trust, as well as themes surrounding food.
Esther has a natural skill as a facilitator. She was flexible to participants coming and going at a drop-in shelter, encouraging any level of participation they felt comfortable with. In a brief time period, she was able to connect with the teens, fostering their creativity with an open-minded approach to poetry. In addition, she invited them to attend Open Mics that she coordinates and offered ongoing, free writing support to an especially talented young woman. The staff at FamilyWorks Family Resource Center and Food Bank were grateful for her interest and support.
Mary Bach-Loreaux, Writer, Ohio
I submitted a memoir piece to Esther in her role as editor of The Psychoanalytic Experience: Analysands Speak. She accepted it but wanted some rewriting done. I promised her the work over and over again for a period of several months before telling her that I was losing my literary voice. That very day Esther sent me an understanding reply. A day later she offered me a suggestion for bypassing my block. The ice was broken, and I began to recover myself as a writer. I'm going to seek Esther's help as a writing coach as often as I can. She has given me new hope."
Priscilla Long, Poet, Writer, Teacher, Seattle
"Esther Helfgott is an excellent writer and a wise and patient teacher concerned with both content and craft. Her longstanding "It's About Time" reading series and her online publications are essential and treasured elements of Seattle's vital community of readers and writers."
Abha Iyengar, Writer, New Delhi, India
"When I wrote my article "A Woman's Cry: A Need to Write," it was raw and undeveloped. Esther helped me hone and polish it. Of course, she first appreciated my writing, and then helped me give it its 'finish'. She is thorough and painstaking and extremely professional in her approach. If she works with you, consider yourself lucky."
Irene Drennan, poet, Seattle, WA.
In the Fifties I was hung up on the beat poets. I listened and scribbled and fell in love with writing. I was in full swing, won the Louisa Kern Fund Award, directed the Sons and Daughters of Dementia Workshop, and produced a Seattle radio show called Zounds, Poetry & Music.
I stopped writing to get daughters through their teens; they left the nest, and I retired. But aha, too late. My muse took off for lack of attention. I tried to lure her back. No go. I saw an ad on a grocery store bulletin for senior poets, and Esther Helfgott's phone number. I called, joined the class. That was 1991.
Through Esther's gentle prodding my muse came home, dragging her feet, but home. It is one month short of 2004 and I am still Esther's grateful friend. We workshop together and are part of a wonderful group of women poets who read together in bookstores, cafes and other venues. We're called The Daughters of Dementia, and we each write, read and speak in a different key.
Alisa, age 12
Esther is a great teacher! She has helped me in my school and with my grades. She helps me with spelling, sentences, poems, essays and reports. She helps me with what I need to learn, and much more.
Nancy Peacock, Environmental Science and Policy Writer/Editor; Founder, Springboard Poetics
"Esther's critiques of my poetry and prose have been frank and thorough, generous and compassionate. She listens and reads with acuity and a highly inquiring mind, and has helped me reach greater clarity and authenticity in my writing."
Denise Calvetti Michaels, memoirist, poet
'There would have been a hole,' Esther said to me when I called her, distraught, about my writing. I was one of her new students in a creative writing class on Saturday afternoons at Richard Hugo House in Seattle. I'd enrolled to gain confidence in my writing as I often shied away from the material of my own life.
Esther helped me understand that if I didn't write my stories, there'd be a voice missing at the table.
When it was difficult for me, as it was the day I phoned her, she gave me encouragment full of conviction as to why what I had to say was important to get on to the page.
She connected my particular plight to that of writers in general. She also provided practical steps to allow me to move forward and not stay stuck in the doldrums of the moment.
For example, she suggested that I type out the piece I'd hand-written in class so I could see it differently.
She suggested I make a file for those times I wanted to go back to the piece to see what more comes up. Such pieces might become poems, essays, memoir, ways to be set free. And this is the way it has been for me when I write.
Since my association with Esther, either as a student in one of her classes, or in a consultation on a particular writing assignment, I have been able to complete several writing projects.
Esther reviewed a memoir I wrote that was later accepted for inclusion in the anthology, Milk of Almonds, Italian American Women on Food and Culture, published by Feminist Press, 2002.
Esther also helped me edit a recent poetry project comprised of over 100 poetry fragments into an organized collection entitled, Opus Reticulatum--A Work of Webbing.
There is so much I could say about working with Esther that speaks to her varied interests, her appreciation of writers in all of our forms and voices, her commitment and stamina to continue to foster a community of writers and readers.
Esther models how to live the writer's life with respect for all of our voices, conviction for the voice that is mine, and dignity and poise to bring the work to the world.
Idore Anschell, poet, writer, teacher
"Esther paved the way for me to become an MFA candidate. One-on-one writing sessions, along with her classes, taught me to stay with the heart of the poem, to watch out for extravagance of adverbs, prepositions and punctuation--and to make sure I include transitions and sufficient detail.
I find Esther to be an outstanding teacher who folds a student into her mind and heart, just as she does a poem or a book she is reading."
Mildred Andrews, author, specializing in Northwest social history.
I was happily married to George Andrews for almost forty years, until his death in June 2006. One of the consequences for me was months of writer's block. Esther Helfgott's Poeming the Silence class has helped me find a voice to express my feelings and also to resume my historical writing. Thanks ever so much for helping me begin to poem the silence. Your class has been a highlight of each week, with inspiration to pick up a pen.
Jeanne Rowe, class participant
Thank you, Esther, for a marvelous class. You have helped me discover my voice in poetry. I also appreciate your encouragement and your gentle facilitating. You have created a very "safe" environment for exploration and learning.
Relationships "happen" in your classes, and we get to know one another in very special ways. Oh, if all education were only like this! "The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery," a wise person once said.
