Incarcerated Words
Humanities
Creative Writing LTCR 53
For many years I have been interested our prison system and it’s effects on inmates. As a child, I spent many weekends visiting family and friends in local jails and state penitentiaries, and I was always fascinated with their lives while incarcerated. What did they do? Who were they with? I wondered why most of the inmates were Black and Latino in whatever jail, prison or detention center that I visited. These are the memories that have sparked my interest in doing research on this topic. The work completed in this book is a collection of poems I have written from personal experiences, as well as from working with incarcerated people.
I began working with incarcerated women this past October in the Santa Cruz County Jail where I facilitate poetry workshops for weekly three-hour sessions. My research question is a result of that experience: Can writing poetry in prison be an effective coping mechanism by reducing stress, and validating inmates’ personal experiences? I hope to investigate whether poetry can be a vehicle for personal growth and self-awareness. I believe that poetry is a way, even if only temporarily, to free confined bodies. My goal is to see whether poetry, the act of creation, can be a liberating experience, and how that is manifested in the incarcerated population.
I have already begun my research and my instruction in the County Jail. I will continue to teach, write my poems, and do my research during the winter quarter, and will have my poems, research paper, and anthology of poems by incarcerated women completed by early spring quarter.
