Words without walls : writers on addiction, violence, and incarceration PDF
Preview Words without walls : writers on addiction, violence, and incarceration
Praise for Words without Walls “Words without Walls will motivate new readers to read and inspire new writers to write. The stories here are human and painful; the telling itself is direct, intimate, and sharp. I can almost imagine the conversations this book was created to enliven, and the new stories and poems that will be born.” —JUDITH TANNENBAUM, author of Disguised as a Poem: My Years Teaching Poetry at San Quentin “Words without Walls is filled with the descendant voices of García Lorca and Jean Genet, of Voltaire and Akhmatova. These writers know that incarcerated voices, marginalized voices, and exiled voices are sacred guides to resisting everything that makes us less human than we are capable of being.” —DARRELL BOURQUE, author of Megan’s Guitar and Other Poems from Acadie “If, as William Blake says, ‘Prisons are built with bricks of law,’ then this searing, delving, heartbreaking, and healing collection, composed in diverse conditions and shared in a thousand lightless places, is potently unlawful. Featuring an array of America’s most admired writers along with new voices speaking out bravely, this book sings with a power no walls can quell: the power of witness. Words without Walls is a unique and necessary tool—both balm and weapon—for those of us teaching, reading, writing, and listening in the world beyond the academic pale.” —PHILIP BRADY, editor at Etruscan Press “In the six years I ran a prison workshop, I would have welcomed a broad collection of work like this. These brilliantly selected pieces would have helped the inmates I worked with more easily see themselves as part of a community of people whose voicelessness can be the cruelest aspect of incarceration. Words without Walls offers a range of writers across genres, holding a lens to human consequence and the incredible capacity of people to endure—and even rise again.” —STEPHEN PETT “Words in spaces of forced confinement and places of recovery, which often squelch our humanity, become connective fibers, not only to the world removed but most importantly to the self who fights against intense hurdles to bring those words, their truth, to the surface. Words without Walls is an amazing collection, a powerful tool to inspire and empower all people to let their voices be heard.” —KYES STEVENS, founder and director, Alabama Prison Arts and Education Project PUBLISHED BY TRINITY UNIVERSITY PRESS San Antonio, Texas 78212 Copyright © 2015 by Sheryl St. Germain and Sarah Shotland All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. Cover design by Anne Boston Book design by BookMatters, Berkeley, California Cover art: ©iStock.com/Viorika Prikhodko Photography, ©iStock.com/Purdue9394 Trinity University Press strives to produce its books using methods and materials in an environmentally sensitive manner. We favor working with manufacturers that practice sustainable management of all natural resources, produce paper using recycled stock, and manage forests with the best possible practices for people, biodiversity, and sustainability. The press is a member of the Green Press Initiative, a nonprofit program dedicated to supporting publishers in their efforts to reduce their impacts on endangered forests, climate change, and forest-dependent communities. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI 39.48-1992. CIP data on file at the Library of Congress ISBN 978-1-59534-256-0 ebook 19 18 17 16 15 | 5 4 3 2 1 . . . for the first time, I had something to lose—my chance to read, to write, a way to live with dignity and meaning. —Jimmy Santiago Baca CONTENTS Editors’ Introduction Nonfiction Jimmy Santiago Baca: Coming into Language R. Dwayne Betts: Thirty Minutes Greg Bottoms: Fight James Brown: Instructions on the Use of Alcohol Toi Derricotte: When My Father Was Beating Me Nick Flynn: same again Ken Lamberton: Introduction to Beyond Desert Walls Ken Lamberton: Desert’s Child Terra Lynn: Turtle Suit Ann Marlowe: from How to Stop Time Scott Russell Sanders: Under the Influence MerSiha Tuzlic: Everything Is White Jesmyn Ward: from Men We Reaped Poetry John Amen: 23 Jen Ashburn: Bed Sheets Jen Ashburn: Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony R. Dwayne Betts: Ghazal R. Dwayne Betts: Red Onion State Prison Roger Bonair-Agard: Ode to the Man Who Grabbed My Arm in the Bar Roger Bonair-Agard: Ode to the Man Who Leaned Out the Truck to Call Me Nigger Gwendolyn Brooks: The Mother Christopher Davis: Jojo’s Christopher Davis: The Murderer Toi Derricotte: Clitoris Natalie Diaz: The Elephants Natalie Diaz: How to Go to Dinner with a Brother on Drugs Mark Doty: Tiara Stephon Hayes: Allegheny Ford Trucks Terrance Hayes: Ars Poetica # 789 Marie Howe: Sixth Grade Tyehimba Jess: leadbelly in angola prison Allison Joseph: Home Girl Talks Girlhood Natalie Kenvin: The Black Eye Natalie Kenvin: Beating Etheridge Knight: Another Poem for Me (after Recovering from an O.D.) Joan Larkin: Genealogy Joan Larkin: Good-bye Heather McNaugher: I Could Never Heather McNaugher: Untitled W. S. Merwin: Thanks Naomi Shihab Nye: Kindness Sharon Olds: I Go Back to May 1937 Sharon Olds: The Language of the Brag Gregory Orr: If There’s a God . . . Sara Ries: Dad’s at the Diner Tim Seibles: For Brothers Everywhere Tim Seibles: Natasha in a Mellow Mood Sheryl St. Germain: Addiction Sheryl St. Germain: Eating Sheryl St. Germain: Young Night Christine Stroud: Relapse Suite Rhett Iseman Trull: The Real Warnings Are Always Too Late Derek Walcott: Love after Love Bruce Weigl: The Impossible Franz Wright: Untitled Gary Young: Untitled Fiction Dorothy Allison: River of Names Eric Boyd: Anything for Johnny Bonnie Jo Campbell: The Solutions to Brian’s Problem Raymond Carver: Popular Mechanics Maureen Gibbon: from Swimming Sweet Arrow Jessica Kinnison: Chess Over Royal Street, a love story Joyce Carol Oates: The Boy Tim O’Brien: from The Things They Carried ZZ Packer: from Drinking Coffee Elsewhere Anna Quindlen: from Black and Blue Sapphire: from Push Sarah Shotland: from Junkette
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