Lincoln University student Rashanna James-Frison launches 'Books on the Ground Literacy Campaign' to share her healing journey with eighth-grade girls.
At 13, Rashanna James-Frison turned to poetry to cope with the loss of her parents and the problems she saw in her hometown of Newark and the world beyond. Like keeping a journal, painting or other fine arts, writing poetry is an instinctive response that experts say children and teens use to“My first poem was actually to my biological father, that passed,” said Rashanna, now 18.
“It was just to remember him in a way, and also put how I was feeling about the situation on paper. Because when I initially found out about the information, I didn’t really say much. I just wrote it down.” “Since then, I’ve kind of used poetry as a way to express how I feel — and it doesn’t necessarily have to be anything personal,” she added. “Social injustice, the Black Lives Matter movement. Really, any issue that I felt strongly about.” What makes Rashanna’s journey toward an emotionally healthy adulthood extraordinary is that she’s taking her poetry a step further, harnessing it to help other young Newarkers meet their own emotional challenges., whose own father was killed when she was 17. His death on the cusp of her adulthood sent James-Frison into a years-long downward spiral of depression and homelessness before she turned her life around and, with her husband, legally adopted Rashanna when she was 11. Rashanna, a first-year junior at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania who earned two years of credits at Newark’s Bard High School Early College program, has published a collection of 25 poems, "So that others can benefit from her experience, Rashanna plans to distribute 1,000 copies to Newark girls in eighth-grade, the point in her life when she turned to poetry to cope with the loss of her biological parents, both of them victims of horrific violence. In her poem, “Me, Myself, and I,” she describes looking in the mirror and literally reflecting on the impact of her birth-parents’ death.But this me, myself, and I is a fake.Amazon Self Publishing tool, and produces copies for $12 each. Poetry lovers, grieving teens and anyone else can buy the book for that priceto sponsor copies for the free distribution, which she plans to conduct during the holidays while home on break in December.“Because it includes metaphor,” Lear said. “Grieving children are having to find words to describe a really indescribable experience. And I would imagine that if a child is drawn to the art form of poetry, that it would be a way to give some structure to something that’s hard to describe.” James-Frison, 56, said she came to grips with her father’s death and got her life back on track thanks to her faith, a loving and supportive marriage, a return to school, and self-belief. After years bouncing between odd jobs and living out of her car, James-Frison met her future husband, Andre Frison, earned her associate’s degree at Essex County College, and then a bachelor’s in social work at Rutgers University-Newark. She went to work for the New Jersey Department of Children’s Protection and Permanency and founded the nonprofit mentoring service, Last year, James-Frison was elected to the Newark Board of Education, where her colleagues chose her as a co-vice president after sheShe said having turned her own life around gave her the confidence to mentor others, including Rashanna. “I do believe that my background has a lot to do with the person, the young lady, that she is becoming today,” she said. “When we first adopted her, I pretty much told her my entire story, about me being homeless, having a learning disability, domestic violence. I told her everything.” James-Frison was all too aware of the parallels between their lives and what Rashanna’s loss could lead to. “That was one reason why I worked so hard with her. I didn’t want her to become an Allison,” she said, referring to her earlier self. “I knew from firsthand experience,” she added, “and with her going through what she went through, she really needed someone to guide her and let her know these are the possibilities that can happen to you. So I shared all my stories with her when we talked about it, over dinner, over tea, and she started becoming her own person.” Lear, the therapist and author, said a parent or professional counselor who has gone through something similar can be a particularly helpful guide to a child’s recovery from trauma — except in certain circumstances. “As therapists, we will sometimes self-disclose in therapy about our own struggles or hardships in life if we think it might be beneficial to the client,” Lear said. But, she added, “If you are going to be sharing your own history of trauma or loss with a child, you want to make sure that it’s something that you yourself have processed enough that your child doesn’t start to feel like they need to jump in and be the caregiver for you.” Rashanna’s biological father had been physically and neurologically disabled before she was born, shot in the head by a stray bullet at a Newark housing complex. She and her father had a warm relationship, though limited by his disability, before he died of complications from the coronavirus in April 2020, a month after the Rashanna was 4 years old and living in Newark with her biological mother, Nakisha Burks, when Burks went missing over a weekend while another family member was caring for her daughter. Her body was later found in an abandoned building, apparently the victim of blunt-force injury, James-Frison said. Rashanna continued to live in Newark after her mother’s death, first for a few months with a cousin, then for several years with an aunt. She was in foster care briefly before moving in with her future parents in August 2017, when she was 10. The family became official on Nov. 17, 2018, National Adoption Day. They share a brick home on Colleen Street, a block-long refuge from traffic and noise that dead-ends at a small creek in Newark’s West Ward. Andre Frison was 14 when his father died of cancer, so he shares some of his wife and daughter’s experiences. The longtime FedEx supervisor who moonlights as an insurance broker also overcame what he called a “rough” youth in Newark. But Frison said his loss was not as traumatic as his wife’s or Rashanna’s, and he can only marvel at the special bond between the two. “It’s been extraordinary,” he said of witnessing their relationship deepen. “My wife knew exactly the things to do that helped my daughter along the way to get past her difficulties. I am so blessed to have both of them in my life.” In some ways, Rashanna is a typical teen who’s into volleyball, competitive dance, and the “old school” R&B of Chris Brown and Mary J. Blige. But her mother in particular has been grooming her for adulthood from a young age, with early life lessons in banking, mortgages, and believing in herself and her unique voice. “My mom has been molding me to become a leader in my own way,” Rashanna said. “From the beginning, she always told me, ‘You have a story to share, and it’s gonna impact the world in greater ways than you know.’”A Newark budget that would hike the average tax bill $564? Not quite yet. 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