When I point my
old Subaru south, the familiar butterflies in my gut take wing. As I drive
toward the tracks, the coal-fired power plant, and the state prison, where I
will meet the writing workshops, I get nervous.
I do not get nervous because I will soon be sitting in a room with twenty
inmates in a medium-high security unit of the Arizona State Prison Complex, nor
because of the sometimes rigid and byzantine bureaucracy that seems to be
forever changing the rules. No, the nervousness comes from a fear that I will
not do a good job running the workshops.
I
am concerned that I have not sufficiently prepared, that I have forgotten
copies of inmate work, that I am not up to the job of providing what these men
need to improve their writing. I feel some of the same butterflies on the first
day of college writing classes for similar reasons. All teaching situations
require customized planning, whether teaching upper division non-fiction prose
classes, first year developmental writing, or prison creative writing workshops.
The
butterflies settle as I pass through the six electric gates, three ID
checkpoints, and long walk across the open yard to the Programs Building. As
the men enter the room and help to set up the desks and chairs, I find myself
on more familiar ground, talking about language and ideas, the same topics I
address in college writing classes. It is this point of contact, this
negotiation, and how it differs between the prison and the university that I
would like to explore. It’s a good subject, and one that, as a teacher I find
challenging to think about.
When
I first consider the differences in how I approach college classes compared to
the prison workshops, I see more continuity than disconnect. In some ways, in other words, writing is
writing, whether it be a freshman comp class at the university or a creative
writing class in the prison. I am not surprised to eavesdrop on the men in the
workshop at the door to our classroom arguing over the uses and abuses of
profanity or whether explicit violence is necessary to develop a particular
story. Inmates are often less jaded and more passionate about style and content
than my undergraduate students, though both share the interest. All that said,
the contexts and purposes of prison writing workshops and college writing
courses are drastically distinct and require that I tailor methods and
materials to fit the job.
The
biggest difference between my university teaching and the prison workshops is
what one could call the “social and political constructs” within which the
writing happens. Angela Davis coined the term “prison industrial complex” as
way to get a handle on the epidemic increase in incarceration along with the
growth of private, for profit prisons.
Our
prison population is the highest in the world, and part of what leads to
incarceration is illiteracy. Learning to read and write makes it less likely
that one will end up in prison, or, in the case, of already being there, makes
it less likely that an inmate will return. The reasons for decreased recidivism
and literacy are not fully understood, but the relationship has been
documented, and parsing the particulars is beyond the scope of this essay.
As
a teacher, I need to understand the context of the workshops. Inmates don’t get credit, grades, or degrees
for their writing. Inmates come to the workshops for a wide variety of reasons,
sometimes just to get some paper and a pen. More often than not, they bring
some kind of question, something about how to express feelings they cannot
contain, or about how to compose a letter to a judge. Sometimes they come for
the wrong reasons and find better ones as time and writing progresses.
The
prison population, like any other, is diverse and complex. J., for example,
graduated from an Ivy League school before becoming a heroin addict, and C.
dropped out of school in the eighth grade. Yet they see themselves represented
stereotypically in television, film, and advertising as low-lifes, cruel,
mentally deranged, stupid, comically inept. As a result, inmates have
desensitized to criticism, or gotten so thick skinned that they accept it with
much of a struggle. Paradoxically, they tell me the workshops are a place where
they can feel, be more human for a while.
Inmates
write about a world I barely know – one of addiction, homelessness, violence,
prostitution, as well as love, hope, and spiritual life. They patiently explain
terms like “tweaker,” and strategies to stretch food stamps like buying a cheap
item with the stamp and then taking the cash for what they really want. They
have few illusions about clichés like a fair, blind justice system and are
jaded about equal enforcement of laws. Unlike students at the university, I do
not have to persuade inmates that poverty, race, and class all figure in to
opportunities offered.
The
physical space of the workshops is decidedly low-tech: no ELMO, LCDs,
connectivity, or even overhead projectors. The workshops operate in the age of
pencil and paper. Regimentation, martial authority, and predatory relationships
pervade the yard. All of this adds up to a “no bullshit” atmosphere. My persona
has to be one that radiates confidence and commitment to what we are doing. I
have to believe in it. I have to have reasons that the inmates understand and
respect for what we do.
Writing
in the workshops is intrinsically motivated. That is, I don’t tell them what to
write about. They choose the subjects, though I do give “assignments” for those
who are stuck. For example, I might ask them to describe an idea or concept as
a character, to personify an abstraction like despair. But I tell them that
they have to do the assignment, or something else that they want to work on.
Most just work on what they want to write about. The work is usually what we
composition people call “expressive” or creative – prose, poetry, and fiction,
or some blend of them.
The
inmates bring a rich well of experience to the workshops, but not always the
technical skills to present that experience in a way that most readers will find
interesting or comprehensible. In order to polish the writing, inmates must
work on language, rhetorical strategies, syntax, form. We talk about matching
the subject to the form best at conveying it. It is heady, hard work. The
“lessons” of “showing, not just telling,” using figurative language, selecting
telling detail, and many others, are all woven into the context of drafting,
revising, editing.
Another
aspect that contributes to motivation lies in the end goal of the workshop:
publication. The Poetry Project is supported by a grant from the Lannan
Foundation that pays for a yearly magazine. For years it was the Walking Rain Review under Richard
Shelton, but now it is Rain Shadow,
part tribute, part description of the meteorology around the prison.
But they can try to publish
anywhere, and they bring in drafts to workshop for science fiction magazines,
travel magazines, literary magazines, and contests like the Pen America Prison
Writing Contest.
In other words, the workshops are a
means to an end of reaching an audience, and not an abstract audience, but one
that might pay for the right to publish.
Given
that the workshops have limited seats and participants that self-select, most
of the inmates want to learn, desperately in cases. They do not carry an
inheritance of entitlement, like many of the undergraduates at the UA, however.
Many come from families that did not expect high levels of literary attainment.
They were not told to go to college, become doctors, lead. Many of the inmates
have been homeless, or addicted, or grown up in abject poverty, or dropped out
of school. In terms of writing, many have trouble with spelling and punctuation
and are not afraid to ask basic questions about nouns, verbs, sentences, or
whether or not it is better to begin with a detail or a broad overview. Sometimes
the profundity of the questions, such as what is a sentence or what makes a
paragraph leave me scratching my head because I don’t know for sure. I can’t define
the difference between poetry and prose other than by vague generalizations.
they make me think.
Given
that the context, population, physical resources, and motivations of the prison
workshops differ so dramatically from the college writing class, what can a
teacher/writer do? How do I negotiate this difference?
The
first move I make is to meet them where they are, wherever that is. Then it is
time to listen to what it is they need and what the best ways are to offer
that. Some inmates need critique, sometimes sharp critique. Others may need
encouragement, recognition for exploring difficult subjects or experiences.
Sometimes the best thing I can do is listen. Some of them just want to have
their say, to speak their truth, share a hard-won realization. These
intangibles may be the reward of the workshops. Inmates get no direct social
promotion for the workshops, but they can glean some better understanding of
themselves by working on creative pieces.
When I reload the Subaru and head
back toward the city, I remember that when I began to write, I spoke with a voice I
did not yet know; I found a persona separate from the one I knew in day-to-day life. The words that came to me carried a different weight, tone, and understanding. Those words strung together to shape ideas, to shape an identity, spoke
taboos, affirmed beliefs. The words took
on a life of their own when put to paper. It is the words I trust when I go to
the prison or to the classroom. With some respect, skill, and something to say,
they maybe build a self, maybe rock the world.
