When I
point my old Subaru south, the familiar butterflies take wing. I drive toward
the tracks, the coal-fired power plant, and the state prison, where I will meet
the writing workshops. About the time I merge onto the interstate, I get
nervous. The reasons are both trivial and close to a live nerve.
I am nervous that I will not do
a good job running the workshops. That’s the teacher in me, and my apprehension
is well founded. The workshops have been going on for almost 40 years, and they
have a decorated, high profile history. There is no way I can live up to what
Richard Shelton has done with inmate writing – National Book Awards, Endowment
for the Humanities grants and on and on. But I am a teacher and writer and pay
attention to the challenges in front of me, which loom large as I approach the
Arizona State Prison Complex at the end of Wilmot road.
The “population” of workshop members
is a Rubik’s Cube of ethnic diversity, previous education, expectations, and
attitudes toward writing. It’s a challenge not unlike a tough English 101
class, but the racial divides and prison politics, the “shot-callers” and gang
affiliations are all there, waiting at the door when the workshop is over,
hanging over the yard like a poison cloud. I am not totally naïve about the
realities of inmate life, especially in the higher security yards, yet even
this is not the core source of my agitation.
I am concerned that I have not
sufficiently prepared, that I have forgotten to type or make 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.
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 have to meet some of my own demons,
that I will shrink from the harsh facts of inmate stories, that I will fail to
help the men to tell their stories in a way that readers will find compelling
enough to see the human face behind the words.
Yes, there is more going on here.
Prison is more than a place of confined bodies; it is also, literally and
metaphorically, the place of confined, broken, disowned, and silenced stories.
It is no secret that the US has the highest documented rates of incarceration
in the world, and Arizona ranks 6th among the states at 572 in
prison per 100,000 residents. Much has been written about the social,
political, and economic costs of incarceration, but the social psychology of
American incarceration hasn’t received much attention. There is more even than
a kind DSM catalogue of mental illness and how prisons have become the holding
bin for the mentally ill who have no advocates or resources. There is even a
more subtle, more insidious dynamic at work.
Prison
reflects what Carl Jung calls
the shadow, that aspect of the psyche to reject and disown the
unpleasant
aspects of a whole human. Unpleasant traits like addictions, poverty,
mental illness, violence, racism, ignorance -- the whole package -- ends
up locked away. What is “human” includes as much atrocity as it does
fine art, after all. Jung contends that denying the shadow comes at a
great
cost, that vitality decreases in proportion to the energy needed to keep
the
shadow at bay. It is worth noting that
he does not argue for acting out the “Mr. Hyde,” aspects of the psyche, but
that full autonomy results only from being aware of what is in the shadow, how
it shows up in fits of anger, sadness, depression, even psychosis. He argues
the “enlightenment does not come imagining figures of light, but my making the
darkness conscious.” He also says that how the mind organizes itself manifests
in social organization and behavior. What goes on inside, in other words, takes
a parallel form outside, in social structure, institutions, organization.
One might ask, "How does
darkness become conscious?" Good question that. The best way I know is
through story. The disowned elements of the psyche rise to consciousness in
dreams and story. Stories have a way of defusing some of the tension of
repression, freeing that energy for creative work. Making art is another way to
touch the shadow. Inviting inmates to create, and in the process, to access
some of that shadow, is one way to make their presence conscious to the psyche
of the free world, the un-incarcerated.
The inmates in our prisons are the
exiled aspects of the social body, the rejects, the throw-aways, the denied.
Many of the men I work with in prison are there because they are the left-overs
when opportunities ran dry. Society does not offer everyone the same chances,
the same educations, the same encouragement or preparation. The ones who are
left out of the legal avenues to upward improvement have no choice but to make
their own opportunities in underground systems, black markets, organized gangs,
or criminal taking of resources.
If I am honest with myself, I know
that I am no better than they are, and, quite possibly would have made the same
choices given similar situations. Yes, there are dangerous men in prison,
violent sociopaths who should be contained. But there are others, many others.
Non-violent drug offenders usually make it in the workshops. I know some who
claimed they needed to feed a family, so played the only game open to them;
they did what they had to do. Being a product, in some ways, of my environment
and privilege, I know that I did not have to make some of the choices these men
made. Going into the prison reminds me of those parts of myself that I have not
had to feed to survive.
I have to consider the truth of
stories I would rather not hear and that those stories serve as witness for
those unpleasant facts that the free world would rather ignore. It is my place
to raise the questions that will lead to more effective telling, forms and
quality that will result in publication. In many ways, I am the bad news that
stories will have to re-written if they will ever go beyond the privacy of a
festering wound.
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.
Consider the work of J., an addict,
an ex-member of the Aryan Brotherhood, he says, and one of the more serious
members of the workshop:
Heroin
Cosmology
A flame flickers
Beneath the flimsy white plastic
spork
But it does not melt
Into an unrecognizable blob.
Instead, thousands of tiny new
planets
Sizzle into existence, pop into
extinction
A fresh galaxy of euphoria.
The clear plastic mosquito slurps
its fill
And the newest god winces
As the needle-sharp silvery fang
punctures.
He begins to pray to Him
To see crimson swirling and
congealing
Mixing with dark nirvana, however
temporary
It is evidence of true aim.
As the smooth black rubber o-ring
rams home
And the white circle of string
Is untied from above a bicep
Eyelids droop, jaws slacken,
mysteries are revealed,
And A-H-H!
The vice tightens
Another turn
The grip
Like jaws of a leg-hold
Trap.
J. grew up in Phoenix, lived on the
streets after he dropped out of high school, an saw no hope of going to
college. He was married for a while and has children. He is an Arizona son who
is shrewd enough to see opportunities and take them.
***
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.
A literary journal speaks to a wider
audience than most of the inmates write for. They write for each other, and the
results are sometimes embarrassing in the sophomoric, puerile humor, the
sexism, the scatological hilarity. When I point to this, often the only voice
who wants improvement, they tell me I would understand if I were incarcerated.
I don’t disagree, and remind them that they aren’t just writing for other
inmates if they want their work published. In order to publish, they have to
move beyond complaining or the easy slap-stick and find an image or a telling
detail or a story with breathing characters rather than general abstractions.
These are the messengers that both speak from the shadow and to a reader.
Energy is exchanged and art is born. This, to me, is when the writing becomes
truly dangerous in making connections between the free world and that of the
prison.
Here is a poem from B., a long-time
member of the workshops who has published regularly for over ten years.
Cut From The
Will
Though you knew
---
I know you knew
---
I was already
stuck outside
In the rock
garden’s far end
Atop a
three-headed saguaro.
So, why?
I never could
make myself
Eat a whole crow
But didn’t I
always bring each
Broken body to
the backdoor?
I know you saw
them.
I left them for
you
There on the
limestone stair
With its
unshaped edge and map
Of dried mildew
islands.
I saved you,
Saved you from
your stone dream:
Brought you
black feathers
Broken bits of
wing and claw.
I left them ---
always --- so
You could find
them
Where the
afternoon shadows
From the backyard’s
single cottonwood
Reach the door’s
sedimentary tread.
Open up!
You hear me,
I know you hear
me.
Just open the
damn door. . .
I’m asking. . .
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. They lean in sometimes to
ask what a word brought up in discussion means. They want to participate,
learn, to inquire. 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 about the fundamental
functions of language, the role of a sentence as the smallest unit of story:
character and action. They push me to question ways we dramatize the
unspeakable.
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 inmates join the workshops,
their writing is often overly sentimental and distressingly abstract. They
write, understandably, to daughters, girlfriends, and mothers in language more
appropriate to Hallmark cards than to literary publication. Or it is
confessional, sensational, and graphic, but goes little further than rendering
scenes in distressingly harsh detail. They begin by recording just experience,
to the point where there is only circumstantial detail, with little or no
broader, audience appeal, or larger idea.
The next level of writing – which begins with a deep engagement with the
subject – where it begins to examine a theme or idea, is a big step and depends
in part on levels of reading, education, awareness of a worldview or
vision. The bigger ideas, the context,
the overlap with an outside reader’s world seem unnecessary or unworthy of
consideration. The learning curve for these men is steep. Sometimes, in a
matter of months, they write with greater maturity, precision, and honesty.
They hear, in the other men’s work, real effort to capture experience through
well-chosen, independent, fresh, well-earned language.
They have to grow beyond embryonic
ideas of what good writing is and how much work it takes to shape and share a
complex thought. I realize that I am
talking to myself when talking to them. I see that what needs to be said in my
own life is the hard stuff -- my fears, anger, and sense of injustice. It takes
so much energy to keep that repressed, bottled up, confined. I have begun that
process, but have not finished. There is work to be done. It begins with
invitation, leads to listening, and then progresses to the craft of shaping for
oneself and for a reader. It is one thing to be heard, another to be
understood.
When I reload the Subaru and head
back toward the city, I remember that when I began to write, I found someone
inside myself I did not previously know. The words led to ideas, strung
together an identity, spoke taboos, affirmed beliefs. The words took on a life
of their own when put to paper. They made some of the darkness conscious. It is
the words wrung from darkness that I trust when I go to the prison or to the
classroom. With some respect, skill, and something to say students and inmates
might find a way to save us from ourselves.
