Jill McDonough, who has been teaching in Massachusetts’ prisons through Boston University’s Prison Education Program, has a fantastic blog. She’s currently writing about each class session, sharing the poem up for discussion and her students’ responses. She also has a great blog roll that includes some fantastic prison-related photography.
“Your vocation is that place where your deep gladness meets the world’s great hunger.” Frederick Buechner
Please watch the incredible book trailer Michel Wenzer has made for By Heart: Poetry, Prison, and Two Lives.
Most of the men I know in prison (I mostly know men) are serving some kind of life sentence. Some — like Spoon — are serving life without possibility of parole. Some — like Coties — have a sentence so long (99 years) that it stands as a life sentence. Others — like Elmo — are serving term-to-life (in his case, 7-to-life, a sentence meant to last about 13 years in the era when he was convicted, but he’s now served over 30 years on that sentence).
Those with term-to-life sentences have to go before the Board of Prison Terms periodically and make a case for why they should be given a release date. There’s lots to share about this process, but for now here’s a very interesting article about one man — Lonnie Morris, whom Spoon, Coties, Elmo, and I all knew at San Quentin 25 years ago — and his experience with the Board.
Beginning to set up readings for By Heart. Of course, Spoon — 32 years down on a life without possibility of parole sentence — can’t join me to read in person, but Michel Wenzer is making a film of Spoon reading from one of his chapters that I’ll show. The schedule so far:
Thursday April 8, 2010 7 PM Diesel, a Bookstore 5433 College Avenue, Oakland, CA
Sunday April 11, 2010 4 PM Booksmith 1644 Haight Street, San Francisco, CA
Wednesday April 14, 2010 7:30 PM Tattered Cover Book Store 1628 16th Street, Denver, CO
Wednesday August 4, 2010 6 PM Sacramento Poetry Center @ Central Library 828 I Street, Sacramento, CA
