Jane Ellen Ibur is a poet and writer, but she shares her talents with the world in another significant way: She teaches. Yet her creative writing students aren't the kind you picture as pupils of someone with a Lifetime Teaching Certificate in Secondary English.

"I teach people who no one else teaches," the 1973 Webster graduate says. "The underserved populations, from poor troubled juveniles, to prison inmates, to seniors. I teach all ages from birth to death, and I treat everybody exactly the same: My job is to give them their voice."

Aside from her published work and the "Literature for the Halibut" radio show she co-hosts on St. Louis' KDHX-FM, Ibur is essentially a freelance creative writing teacher, searching for students where few look, turning over stones to find those whom society pretends aren't there.

Teaching at homeless shelters, prisons, museums, and arts centers, Ibur keeps going with the help of grants through organizations like the YMCA and the Regional Arts Commission.

"Obviously it's not very lucrative, but I have a great passion for what I do," she says.

Ibur tried "traditional" teaching in the '70s but found it to be a "nightmare" — among other choice words. But beginning with a chance opportunity in 1989 to teach writing to seniors at OASIS, Ibur rediscovered an outlet for her teaching muse. Once found, it flourished.

She teaches gifted but misunderstood children. She reads to Alzheimer's patients to capture their attention. She uses creative writing as a way to teach literacy to illiterates. And she teaches workshops to help other teachers do the same — such as through her longstanding work with Literacy Investment for Tomorrow (LIFT), a public-private literacy resource organization in Missouri.

Lit. Behind Bars

Meg Sempreora, professor and chair of Webster's English department, also brings the art of the written word to the oft-forgotten yet ever-growing population of U.S. prisoners.

Sempreora works through the Prison Performing Arts (PPA), the organization led by 2006 Webster University Distinguished Service Award recipient Agnes Wilcox. Among many projects, PPA teaches the text of a dramatic work to a group of prisoners who Wilcox then trains for several months to perform the work live in front of an audience of family, fellow inmates, and invited supporters of PPA.

Past performances have included Hamlet and Oedipus Rex. But before the inmates can ponder "to be or not to be," they must learn what it really means. That's where Sempreora comes in. A couple times a semester, she travels to the prison site to teach an intensive reading of the text with related shorter works. Her students take the experience as seriously as she does.

"I teach them as I do my Webster undergraduate students," Sempreora says, noting that inmates who stick with the whole program can even apply it toward college credit. "And they appreciate being taught as serious students of Shakespeare or Sophocles. They are great. They are really committed. They sit for hours in this cavernous room, in hard chairs, just so they can do this."

'Murderers are often my best students'

Both Sempreora and Ibur say that regardless of what crimes their incarcerated pupils have committed, they share a special experience that is enhanced by doing something different and meaningful in the otherwise monotonous life behind bars.

"Everyone's aware of where we are; it's impossible not to be," Sempreora says. "Nothing is pretense or escape. They have an amazing trust that I'm going to give them something valuable. I compare it to hunger: They are like a group of people who have gone without food for days, and now they get to share a meal."

“These are not throwaway people. Society thinks they are throwaways, but I don't buy it. No one takes the time to truly rehabilitate them."

That hunger and intensity is why, Ibur says, "Murderers are often my best students. The emotional level of what they feel is so intense, so honest. We make connections, and they write amazing poems and stories."

Their inspiration comes from more than what they've done — or might have done.

"Some of these guys aren't convicted," Ibur says. "They're still awaiting trial for several years, and they're in cells for 17 hours a day. Living a regimented life, becoming automated, robotic. It's a strange world, filled with power struggles and power trips."

Still, like Sempreora, Ibur often finds it best not to ponder the reason for her students' incarceration. Yet both say they never feel unsafe while teaching them.

"It's strange," Ibur says, "But I feel like if any of them tried something, the rest of the class would protect me and take him out."

"These are not throwaway people," she says. "Society thinks they are throwaways, but I don't buy it. No one takes the time to truly rehabilitate them. We have more dangerous people — on a grander scale — in politics.

"But I guess something in me connects with them. Maybe I have felt discardable in life, too. I try to bring out the emotions they have in a positive way."

Despite this connection to their students - and possibly because of it - both Ibur and Sempreora have found incarcerated women more challenging to teach.

"Incarcerated women try to make sense of the texts in their own way," Sempreora says. "They listen differently. They ask different questions. In teaching MacBeth, I approached it from a parenting perspective. The hardest part of incarceration, for women, is separation from families and missing their child-bearing years."

As Ibur says, "Women in that situation are almost too close to home. It's very disheartening. The emotional involvement is so heavy."

Despite the emotional investment, both teachers always find a payoff, something rewarding from sowing the humanity in people who society says have none.

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