Good News: Poetic Justice

Poetry is not only a dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundations for a future of change, a bridge across our fears of what has never been before.

Audre Lorde

Before I was a teacher, I was a social worker. My job was to visit people who were incarcerated for a drug-related felony to ask them for their life story. I listened and then wrote a report for the public defender or judge to inform sentencing — mental health treatment, social services, probation, prison. If the person was sentenced to probation with treatment, I became their case worker.

A typical day at work for me was to drive to the county jail, pass through a metal detectors, and experience a pat down before walking the Chicago county jail hallways to a visiting room where I’d introduce myself across bullet proof class to my client for the first time. I was a stranger to them. Over a couple hours, I heard critical events that impacted the person’s life; acute and chronic trauma were pervasive. And then, I packed up my notes and carried their story back to my car while the guard took them back to their cell.

Though court-ordered, I felt like I was taking testimony and bearing witness to stories that were never uttered before that hour across bulletproof glass.

After a few years of this work, my own mental health was suffering, so I began exploring other ways to serve that felt more preventative, even restorative, and took steps to become a teacher. I learned the power of literature and writing to help us read the world– noticing what stories are celebrated, what stories are pushed to the margins, what stories we want to contribute to the words already in the world.

And I found that writing poetry helped me heal, too, which is why Ethical ELA has been a place for teachers to nurture their writing lives together. For many of us who have participated in this writing space, our poetry has brought us and others a restorative space for hope, and even activism.

Now in OK

New to Oklahoma, I have been looking for ways to learn from and alongside Oklahoma thought leaders and activists, so when I learned about Poetic Justice, I almost felt like they are the reason I found my way to Oklahoma.

Poetic Justice offers restorative writing and creative arts programs to women who are incarcerated. Since 2014, they have been offering classes in jails and detention facilities that engage in self-reflective, therapeutic writing: “By using poetry, women who have never written in their lives find the confidence to write from their hearts.” (They were featured on CNN Heroes.)

Looking back to my days as a social worker, I so wish that I would have used more writing in my sessions with clients. And for all the people I interviewed who were not given social work but were imprisoned, I wish they had a creative writing class. Imagine a world where every jail and prison offers creative writing classes to humanize, repair, restore, heal.

Here is my good news, friends: I have been welcomed to the Poetic Justice Board of Directors! I am honored to be part of an organization that is doing much more than imagining social justice, they are doing the work. Of course, incarceration is not good news. The injustices persist with conditions and disproportionately incarcerated minoritized populations. There is work to be done here.

Support Poetic Justice

Poetic Justice has over 70 volunteers who offer weekly classes to women at the Tulsa County Jail, Creek County Jail, Mabel Bassett Correctional Center, Eddie Warrior Correctional Center, and Kate Bernard Correctional Center. In 2019 we began classes at Las Colinas Detention Facility in San Diego, California and at La Esperanza in Tijuana, Mexico.

Here are some of the ways that Poetic Justice is continuing to work during COVID-19:

• Providing weekly distance learning packets for our students in every facility.
• Providing composition books to the women so they can continue to write.
• Taking catered meals to prison and jail employees who are working their hardest to protect this incredibly vulnerable population.

I would love for you to join us on our journey of Radical Generosity but donating. (Fill out the form on this page, and it will take you to a spot to add credit card information).

• $5 – provides 4 composition books for the women
• $10- provides a meal from Take 2 for one worker at David L. Moss Tulsa Jail
• $15 – provides a meal from Clara Bell’s for one worker at Mabel Bassett Correctional Facility
• $25 – provides distance learning material for one woman
• $50 – provides pizza for all the Creek County Jail workers

I am so looking forward to being a part of Poetic Justice and am waiting for the day when I can meet face-to-face all the Poetic Justice writers. Stay tuned for regular updates here and on social media.

Write to understand.

The best way to understand the transformative power of writing poetry within a community is to experience it. Educators, would you like to join our monthly open write? Complete this invitation form.