Weirding Word

Virginia Protective Orders

An earlier version of this article by Gaea L. Honeycutt was published in Average Girl Magazine

On July 1, 2007 the Fairfax County Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court joined the rest of Virginia by using detailed forms to file protective order affidavits. Until now domestic relations officers typed the affidavits based on interviews with petitioners -- a practice that began when the office first opened. However, the J&DR Court decided that the officers’ practice of typing the affidavits, while conducted ethically, walked the line between duty and advocacy.

This change likely hasn't registered with most Fairfax County citizens, who usually don’t know where to begin with protective orders. There are three types of protective orders in Virginia: 1) Emergency Protective Order or EPO, 2) Preliminary Protective Order or PPO, and 3) Final Order of Protection or PO. EPOs can be obtained 24 hours a day from either a judge or a magistrate. They’re effective for 72 hours, giving petitioners the opportunity to make it to the J&DR Court to file a PPO.

Once filed, the PPO is effective for 15 days, and a hearing is scheduled for the PO, which is effective for 2 years. When filing the PPO, there is a comprehensive list of requests a petitioner can make -- from retaining possession of a shared automobile, to barring the abuser from failing to pay utility bills, to prohibiting the abuser from taking children from school. This information is transferred to the PO.

Other changes impacted the entire state on July 1, 2007. In the past, a magistrate could choose not to issue an EPO if s/he did not believe there was a likelihood of future assault. As of last year, the law presumes that there is a likelihood of future assault unless the victim says otherwise. A magistrate must provide information to the police officer on filing for PPOs and POs. Also, vicitms who filed for PPOs used to have to re-file if the abuser couldn’t be served. Although the Sheriff tries to serve a PPO several times, it’s not uncommon for abusers to hide from the processor. The new regulations give the judge the discretion to extend the PPO for up to six months.

When asked about the most common mistakes petitioners make in filing protective orders, Jerry Rich, Assistant Unit Director of Domestic Relations Services, noted, “Their biggest mistake is coming unprepared. The process is tougher and a lot of cases are he-said-she-said.” Petitioners should be sure to bring pictures, and documents; share information on warrants or pending legal action; and supeona or bring witnesses from after the violent incident, such as police officers, friends or family.

New Virginia residents with protective orders from other states do not need to re-file in the Commonwealth, however they should carry a certified copy of the order with them at all times. “All states recognize protective orders from other states,” explained Mr. Rich. Victims of domestic violence should be sure to file for the protective order in the state where the incident occurred.

For help, resources or counseling, call the Virginia Hotline at 1-800-838-8238, and try these sites in the Commonwealth or across the country:

Family Violence Prevention Fund (www.endabuse.org): Find resources for adults, teens and immigrants.

National Domestic Violence Hotline (1-800-799-SAFE, 1-800-787-3224 (TTY), www.ndvh.org): Find information on domestic violence and options for dealing with it, and get your state’s hotline number.

National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (www.ncadv.org): Find information in staying safe, policy developments, statistics and other programs in the U.S.

WomensLaw.org (www.womenslaw.org): Find legal information about domestic violence for your state, including your state’s process for filing protective orders.

Gaea Honeycutt
blog@weirdingword.com

Weirding Word®, a division of G.L. Honeycutt Consulting, LLC, is a virtual publication department that provides editing, freelance writing, and publication and web design services.

Copyright 2008 Gaea L. Honeycutt. All rights reserved.

Beltway Poetry Quarterly Readings

Beltway Poetry Quarterly will sponsor 2 readings just prior to the Split This Rock Festival (which is now accepting registrations.)

Sunday, March 9, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Split This Rock Poetry Festival Reading, sponsored by Beltway Poetry Quarterly.
Featured readers: Brian Gilmore, Melissa Tuckey, Heather Davis, and Steve Rogers. Followed by open mic. Iota Bar and Restaurant, 2832 Wilson Blvd., Clarendon neighborhood, Arlington, VA. (703) 522-8340. Series hosted by Miles David Moore - Free Admission. http://www.wordworksdc.com

Sunday, March 16, 4:00 pm
Sunday Kind of Love Reading Series: Split This Rock Festival Reading sponsored by Beltway Poetry Quarterly.
Featured readers: Winona Addison, Naomi Ayala, Teri Ellen Cross, Yael Flusberg, Tanya Snyder, Dan Vera, Rosemary Winslow, and Kathi Wolfe. Followed by open mic. Busboys and Poets, 14th & V Streets, NW, DC. (202) 387-POET. Free Admission, although contributions are gratefully accepted. Guest hosts: Kim Roberts and Regie Cabico.

Weirding Word (SM), a division of G.L. Honeycutt Consulting, LLC, a virtural publication department that provides editing, freelance writing, and publication and web design services.

Copyright 2007-2008 Gaea L. Honeycutt. All rights reserved.

Weirding Word (SM) On Writers: Sarah Browning (Part 2)

In this posting, we continue an interview with Sarah Browning, author of Whiskey in the Garden of Eden and peace advocate.

WW: How do you approach your work? How do you create?
SB: These days the organizing has been crowding out the creative work far too much. In addition to coordinating DC Poets Against the War, I'm planning a major poetry festival, Split This Rock, for March of next year; I host a monthly series at Busboys and Poets, Sunday Kind of Love; and I have a part-time job at The Arts Club of Washington, administering their new National Award for Arts Writing.

So, I have to force myself to take time, even when/though it feels like there is no time. And I've been going away some on writing retreats. I was lucky to go to the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts last December, for example.

WW: When you do sit down to write, how does the process happen for you?
SB: I like to read. So, I am often responding to, or jumping off from, something I have read. But, I never know where I'm going when I start to write. I have carried Pat Schneider's process forward into my regular practice, and try to let my unconscious lead me, at least at first. Of course it doesn't always work. Sometimes nothing comes except whining and worrying.

WW: How much of it do you end up recycling and what actually makes it?
SB: That percentage changes, but I'd say at least 80% doesn't make it out of the notebook. And some stuff that does get typed up withers on the vine.

WW: I can't remember the person, but I used to often see a quote, "The personal is political." Would you agree with that?
SB: Yes, that's been a slogan of the feminist and gay rights movement. I agree with it absolutely -- all of our interactions are influenced by social and political factors: race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and ability. That doesn't mean I believe I am only a white, middle-class, well-educated woman, but that's a huge part of who I am. I can't help that. I once wrote a little poem:

WHITE
This poem
is a white poem
because I am white.
It is not a white poem
because it is a poem.

WW: What is different about your writing now that you didn’t expect when you first started? Would it be this consciousness about where your writing comes from and the socioeconomic influences that impact the writing?
SB: Certainly that's part of it. And the willingness to be so personally vulnerable in the writing. As I said, that was very scary for me 15 years ago.

WW: How did becoming published transform your life?
SB: I remember the first time I had a poem published in a literary journal -- these tiny magazines that may have a very modest readership but are the lifeblood of poetry. It was an incredible affirmation. Someone besides my sweet, supportive parents telling me I'd made the right decision to put writing more at the center of my life. And publishing a book is an incredible thing: exciting, scary, intensely vulnerable.

WW: At Weirding Word (SM), we believe that “language creates reality.” How does language create reality in your life? In your writing?
SB: I think as writers we always have to struggle to maintain an authentic language, especially in a culture that is drowning in the language of commerce, the language of propaganda, the language of subtle coercion. These are dead, artificial languages. We have wrestle with language, keep it on its toes, keep it alive. That's what gives me the greatest shot of pleasure -- when I feel like I'm engaging the language, and if I'm lucky, and working hard, maybe, just maybe, doing something a little bit new.

WW: What's next for you?
SB: I'm trying to get the book out there as much as possible, planning a number of readings. Focusing an enormous amount of energy on organizing Split This Rock. I hope folks will check it out at www.SplitThisRock.org. And trying to write new poems, revise poems that always, always need more work. Sometime next year, I hope to have a new manuscript. But I don't want to rush it…

WW: Sounds like you keep busy.
SB: My poetry productivity is pretty light these days, with everything else going on. So I'm just trying to be patient with myself. And at the same time, take myself to my writing notebook on a regular basis. It's the appointment I need to keep.

WW: What's your advice to new/budding writers out there?
SB: Read, read, read -- all kinds of writing, all kinds of poetry. Write frequently -- remember that most of it won't make it into published form. Find a community of like-minded writers and support one another: read each other's work, offer suggestions, arrange readings for one another, call up to complain when you get YET ANOTHER REJECTION from a literary journal on a piece of paper smaller than your thumb.

Sarah Browning's next reading is Sunday, December 9 at 6:00 p.m.:

Iota Bar and Restaurant
2832 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, VA
703-522-8340 or 703-256-9275

Weirding Word (SM), a division of G.L. Honeycutt Consulting, LLC, helps you communicate your ideas and information more effectively through tailored editing, freelance writing, publication and web design services.

Copyright 2007-2008 Gaea L. Honeycutt All rights reserved.

Weirding Word (SM) On Writers: Sarah Browning (Part 1)

Sarah Browning is author of the recently released book of poetry, Whiskey in the Garden of Eden. She is also co-editor of D.C. Poets Against the War: An Anthology, a founder of D.C. Poets Against the War, and coordinator of Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness. Sarah has received the People Before Profits Poetry Prize and an individual artist grant from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.

WW: Tell me a little about yourself and how you got into poetry?
SB: I started writing in high school and college, but then took a long break when I was a community and political organizer. I had this ridiculous notion that poetry was a bourgeois indulgence -- especially for a middle-class white girl. Finally, I realized that I was going out of my mind not writing, and left a high-powered political job so as to put poetry back at the center of my life. I was almost 30 at that time.

WW: High powered political job? For a candidate or a nonprofit?
SB: I work now on integrating these sides of myself -- the creative and the political -- coordinating DC Poets Against the War. I was the Executive Director of an organization in Boston called Citizens for Participation in Political Action (CPPAX), a multi-issue, progressive, statewide citizen activist group.

WW: How did you come back to writing?
SB: My partner, now husband, Tom Hertz, wanted to pursue a doctorate in economics, so we moved to western Massachusetts so he could go to UMass Amherst. I was lucky enough to land in a creative writing workshop with a poet named Pat Schneider, who is especially brilliant at helping writers get past blocks and silence the "internal editors" we carry around in our heads.

I had some very stern editors, who especially told me not to risk sentimentality -- that brush with which women's writing is so often tarred. The result, I think, is that we don't risk emotion; we don't risk telling the truth. Which is just as fatal, if not more so, to poetry as sentimentality.

WW: How did you overcome your editors?
SB: Pat's workshop method provides a very safe environment, one in which writers are encouraged to take risks. Participants write on the spot, from some exercise provided by the workshop leader. Then writers who are moved to read what they've written and the group responds only with what they like or remember. There's time for critique later -- but this writing is brand new and we don't want to be worry about what someone across the room is going to think. This process works incredibly well. I've used it and seen all kinds of writers produce astonishing things in 20 minutes -- children, women living in housing projects, PhD "writers." You can read more about it in Pat's book, Writing Alone and With Others. It took me about a year and a half in Pat's workshop before I stopped writing tiny, cramped, self-conscious poems that we're afraid of exposing anything.

WW: Much of your poetry is very serious. It doesn't seem necessarily sentimental, although there's not a lack of sentimentality either. How do you communicate the emotional side of your creative self?
SB: Well, I hope that each of my poems will touch someone emotionally. Different poems will speak to different readers, of course. But it is when I am moved, that I am moved to write poetry -- whether it's by the beauty of a crystal clear morning in my back yard or by the news, as we had today, of a man who lost his entire family in a bombing in Iraq. Or, both at one time.

WW: Let's step back for a minute. Are your originally from Massachusetts?
SB: No, I grew up in Chicago. But then went to Massachusetts for school and ended up staying for many years, until I had the good fortune of moving to DC.

WW: Good fortune? How do you mean?
SB: DC really feels like home to me. I've been so welcomed here. I've had the great privilege of finding and being welcomed into a rich, diverse community of poets and activists that has sustained me through these past several years.

WW: Where did you first find your passion for activism? Chicago? Boston?
SB: I was raised in an activist family. One of my first memories is marching down State Street in Chicago with my father, protesting the Vietnam War. He was a member of Veterans for Peace and I have very warm memories of those times together, hanging out with the other vets. So, it's who I am.

WW: Tell me about Whiskey in the Garden of Eden and how that merges the two worlds you described--poetry and activism.
Whiskey in the Garden of Eden is my first book, so it includes poems from many of the past 10 years or so. The first section, called "Wild Peace", contains poems I've written since being in DC. They grapple with the changing city (and being part of that change...), the war, and the challenges of raising a child in a time of war. They often entwine the personal and the political.

Other poems in the book reflect on my Chicago childhood in the late 60s and early 70s -- another time of rapid change and war. And other poems are about motherhood and love and loss. But because of who I am, as someone introducing me once said, the world always is present even in the very personal poems.

Look for the second part of Sarah Browning's interview in a few days. In it she discusses how she approaches writing and how publishing has impacted her work.

Weirding Word (SM), a division of G.L. Honeycutt Consulting, LLC, helps you communicate your ideas and information more effectively through tailored editing, freelance writing, publication and web design services.

Copyright 2007-2008 Gaea L. Honeycutt All rights reserved.

Protective Orders More Accessible for Virginians

Effective July 1, 2007, the Commonwealth of Virginia made it easier for victims of domestic abuse and sexual assault to obtain protective orders. The changes remove some of the most burdensome red tape from the process. Read the article I wrote for Average Girl Magazine in PDF.

Weirding Word (SM), a division of G.L. Honeycutt Consulting, LLC, helps you communicate your ideas and information more effectively through tailored editing, freelance writing, publication and web design services.

Copyright 2007-2008 Gaea L. Honeycutt All rights reserved.