Foreword- Sister Helen Prejean
Dedication
Preface-Ann Folwell Stanford and Tobi Jacobi
Introduction-Ann Folwell Stanford
Where We Are From-SpeakOut Writers
Section 1: Writing and Reclaiming Self
1. My Words are Brain and Bone Marrow-Jessica Hill
2. From Nonna’s Table to Book Signings: Under the Influence of the
Pen-Nancy Birkla
3. This Ain’t No Holiday Inn, Griffin: Finding Freedom on the Blank
Page-Dionna Griffin
4. A Symphony of Medicine-Shelley Goldman, a/k/a S. Phillips
5. The Girl Behind the Smile-Judith Clark
6. Writing to Survive the Madness: Letters from Prison-Sarah
Anonymous and Patricia O’Brien
7. My Voice through a Deadbolt Door-Crista Decker
8. Rolling with the Punches-Irene C. Baird
Section II: Bridging Communities: Writing Programs and Social
Practice
9. Good Intentions Aside: The Ethics of Reciprocity in a
University-Jail Women’s Writing Workshop Collaboration-Sadie
Reynolds
10. Jumble of Thoughts-Sandy Sysyn
11. Incorporeal Transformations: The Power of Audience for Women
Writing in Prison-Tom Kerr
12. Writing Exchanges: Composing across Prison and University
Classrooms-Wendy Hinshaw and Kathie Klarreich
13. Mothers and Daughters: Meditations on Women’s Prison
Theatre-Jean Trounstine
14. As Others Stand By and Ask Questions-Roshanda Melton
15. Poetry, Audience, and Leaving Prison-Hettie Jones
Section III: Writing, Resistance, and the Material Realities of US
Prisons and Jails
16. “…to speak in one’s own voice”: The Power of Women’s Prison
Writing-Judith Scheffler
17. Writing is My Way of Sledge Hammering These Walls-Taylor
Huey
18. She Bore the Lyrical Name of Velmarine Szabo-Clarinda
Harriss
19. “You Just Threatened My Life”: Struggling to Write in
Prison-Velmarine O. Szabo
20. Out at the Swamp and Back-Gretchen Schumacher
21. I am Antarctica: I Shriek, I Accuse, I Write-Boudicca
Burning
22. No Stopping Them: Women Writers at York Correctional-Bell Gale
Chevigny
23. Dear Shelly: Reflections on the Politics of Teaching
Inside-Tshehaye Hebert
24. All with the Stroke of a Pen-Joyce Cohen
25. The Prisoner’s Lament-Samsara
Afterword Tobi Jacobi
Hope is There Cree
About the Authors
Appendix
Resources for Facilitating Prison Writing Workshops
Selected Bibliography
Index
Tobi Jacobi is an associate professor of English at Colorado State
University where she teaches writing and literacy classes. Her
research focuses on understanding the problems and possibilities of
situating women’s prison writing workshops as alternative literacy
training. She has taught lifewriting at a county prison in upstate
New York and currently facilitates a women’s prison writing project
in Fort Collins, CO.
Ann Folwell Stanford is Vincent DePaul Professor of
multidisciplinary and literary studies at the School for New
Learning, DePaul University. A poet, she founded and directed the
DePaul Project on Women, Writing, and Incarceration after having
written poetry with women at Cook County Jail for over seven years.
Her book, (Bodies in A Broken World: Women Novelists of Color & The
Politics of Medicine) was published in 2003. Her articles have
appeared in African American Review, American Literature,
Literature and Medicine, Feminist Studies, and other journals and
books.
This powerful volume is the best possible portal for approaching
the vital impact of the word in the context of incarceration.
The voices of advocates, activists, academics—and, most
brilliantly, the voices of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated
women—deploy astonishing and effective languages of clarity, truth,
and justice. The rational passion on these pages is startling
and unforgettable.
*Rickie Solinger, author of "Reproductive Politics: What Everyone
Needs to Know" and co-editor of "Interrupted Life: Experiences of
Incarcerated Women in the U.S."*
This book provides glimpses of prison life that most of us would
not otherwise know. As the women write, thoughts guarded so closely
come spilling out upon the page. They invite us into their worlds
to see them as human beings with human issues they are trying to
resolve. I was moved by the beauty of their poetry and the
poignancy of their life stories.
*Maureen McCormack, Ph.D., pioneered the Ira Progoff Intensive
Journal® workshops in prisons and jails across the US*
These writings undermine the very foundation of our nightmarish and
shameful prison system. Like crews boring a tunnel from opposite
ends, the writers from inside and outside meet in the middle with
affirmations of life and humanity that offer a potent antidote to
the deathly cruelties of the American gulag. And because the vast
majority of women prisoners are incarcerated for non-violent crimes
of poverty, this volume exposes the fundamental assumptions of the
American criminal justice system as instruments of brutal class
control.
*Bruce Franklin, John Cotton Dana Distinguished Professor of
English and American Studies at Rutgers University, Newark; author,
“Prison Literature in America: The Victim as Criminal and
Artist.”*
A moving, sometimes unsettling, account of women caught within the
prison industrial complex. Weaving together the voices of
incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women, community activists,
and academics, this innovative anthology reminds us why writing
matters.
*Patrick W. Berry, Syracuse University*
Women, Writing & Prison is the deepest and most helpful book
I’ve read about teaching the arts inside prison walls. The authors
tackle the complex challenges of working within a criminal justice
system that by its very nature brutalizes those who are locked into
it. The women’s stories, and those of the teachers/activists
who work with them, remind us that writing is a pathway to freedom
within—a practice that affirms our humanity and reassures us that
not only do we exist, but also, we have wings to fly.
*Kathryn Watterson, a.k.a. Kitsi Burkhart, author, “Women in
Prison: Inside the Concrete Womb,” lecturer, creative writing,
University of Pennsylvania*
This invaluable book shines a bright light on the harsh reality of
women in prison, some of the most forgotten people in our country
today. Languishing year after year locked away from society with
few opportunities to express themselves, most have little
opportunity to expand their minds, to grow and appreciate
themselves as individuals.
Writing and reflection through sharing poetry, prose and their
deepest dreams in a safe and supportive group is a powerful form of
restorative justice. When women acknowledge their truths and resist
the dehumanizing experience of prison, it is possible for them to
come to terms with their tangled past and painful present.
Programs such as those described should be required in every jail
and prison. Such healing innovations can make the difference to
untold numbers of people caught in the United States web of
incarceration.
*Susan Spangler Hendricks, LISW-CP, CJT, group therapy leader,
Camille Griffin Graham Maximum Security Prison, Columbia, South
Carolina, 2005-2012*
A brilliant and necessary book bringing the voices of women in
prison to the forefront. Not only do we witness the writings
of the women, but also the writings of those teachers, scholars,
and activists who share their experiences and awaken our
hearts. This collection is astounding, igniting our moral
passion and a must read for all of us.
*JoAnn Flynn, M.Ed., CPT, Connecticut Teaching Artist and Poetry
Therapist*
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