Editor's note: Incarcerated women are much more than an ID number or statistic to the facilitators of Poetic Justice, a nonprofit dedicated to bringing creative writing workshops to incarcerated women. This story is a firsthand account from Beth Niestemski, one such facilitator who shares with us the full experience of these women: their grief, humor, joy and sorrow.
This article was originally published in This Land: Spring 2016.
I come to David L. Moss every week to teach poetry to incarcerated women. It’s become so routine that all of the preparations, the drive to the jail, and the check-in process are robotic. But the autopilot always turns off the moment when the scent of my own freedom wears off and I acquiesce to the monochrome: white walls, white floors, white chairs, white tables, and beams of orange flashing up from the white backdrop.
There are three female “pods” that we teach, and each one looks relatively the same: a small classroom with a white board, a main dining area in the center, a concrete-laden outdoor space, and two floors of cells around the perimeter. We meet in the classroom, armed with a clear plastic backpack filled with countless sheets of loose-leaf paper, sharpened pencils, and essential oils. About five facilitators teach each day, none of us with defined roles. We find that lacking a hierarchical structure makes the women feel most comfortable. The women carry plastic chairs with them as they pile in, greet us, and get settled. Most of them I’ve seen before and know by name, but inevitably there is always a new face: someone who has either never been to class or has never been to jail. Generally, I take a seat next to someone new and introduce myself.
As class begins, the room transforms to a sacred space. It feels like church. Essential oils veil each woman in scents of lavender and peppermint as we invite them to close their eyes. The room feels thick with unspoken hurts as we walk through a meditation. “Think of someone you love. Listen for their voice,” we say. “Can you hear it? If you were in a dark room filled with a thousand people, could you point it out?” They silently answer through their tears and we use this moment to remind them of the power of their voices, that each of them has a story to tell, and a way to tell it that is their own.
We don’t discuss what twists of fate landed them here. Mostly, we talk about their children: the little voices they long to hear and the birthdays that are coming up. They’re not a DOC number or a sad story or a punchline of some right-wing joke now. They’re human.
A fellow facilitator once instructed the women to interview each other and write a poem about their partners. I didn’t know what to expect when they shared their work with the class, but I was sure there were some complicated dynamics at play. Would there be cattiness, pettiness, or passive aggressive lines woven throughout their poems? Instead I heard:
If I was with paint and brush
as I am with pad and pen,
I would paint you
in the most hopeful hues.
One mistake
does not a woman make.
Tears clung to the cheeks of every person in the room who felt defined by the mistakes they’ve made. I realized then that these women are each other’s greatest cheerleaders. There’s no sense of racial or generational divisions like those depicted in shows like Orange Is the New Black. It feels more like an episode of Golden Girls. They remind each other that any emotion is acceptable now, no one will cry alone or laugh alone, and certainly, no one will be laughed at.