In this thesis, I first describe the Full-Contact Poetry environment then continue with a discussion of a workshop I led for six weeks with a small group of teenagers from Boston. The workshop raised many important issues that fall under the interconnected themes of: finding a voice, creating a language and negotiating context. The experience required negotiations at many levels from our small group. Each member needed to find an individual voice both as part of the group and as a poet. As a group, we needed to develop a language with which we could discuss the work that we were creating since the traditional language regarding poetry, or even workshops, did not quite apply. Finally, we were faced with new contexts. The workshop setting encouraged a classroom feeling, yet it was not a classroom. We were working with technology, but not in the way the children were accustomed - likewise with poetry. The thesis explores the challenges of facilitating an environment to support children's expression and the role that personal models play in shaping that environment.