One of the not-insignificant benefits of plying this trade is meeting an endless number of interesting people. I’d like to introduce you to one. I first met Colleen through her parents, Jim and Kathi Coyne of New Jersey, who are loyal McMorrow fans. Colleen is a writer and teacher who knows, as I do, that there are very interesting people—and talented writers—living behind bars. And they deserve a voice.
I’ll let Colleen take it from here (It’s long but worth every minute):

Breaking Out: Poetry in Prisons

A little over a year ago, I left my full-time nonprofit job to go back to graduate school for an MFA degree, so I could really focus on my writing. Well, with other coursework, teaching my own classes, and getting involved in the Twin Cities literary community, I’d spent less time on my own work than I’d hoped. I applied for and was awarded a summer fellowship for a two-week artist residency program in tiny Red Wing, Minnesota, and when I first arrived at the Anderson Center in July, I was looking forward to devoting my time exclusively to my own manuscript-in-progress. A sculpture garden, an extensive library, and a historic estate with all kinds of writerly nooks waiting to be discovered: in this space, I imagined two weeks of absolute reading-and-writing bliss, with no real-world distractions.

The real world never leaves us for long, though, and in this case, what felt like an intrusion became an unexpected blessing. Each artist at the residency gives back to the community by doing some kind of volunteer project, and I was assigned to the state Correctional Facility , which housed chronic, serious juvenile offenders. I was going to run a poetry workshop. Though I’d worked with at-risk youth before, I’d never set foot in jail, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when, one Thursday evening, after a frantic all-day prep session, I entered the stately main gates of the facility. After a sweaty handshake and the reassurance that “they’re really looking forward to seeing you,” I was signed in and taken on a tour by the afterschool program coordinator. She pointed out the “cottages”—handsome dorm-style houses, optimistically named after universities, where residents have private rooms but are responsible for shared housekeeping duties—and the classroom building where students work toward their diplomas or GEDs, along with other areas for behavioral programs, vocational training, and recreation activities. Looking more like a college campus, the facility is beautiful, and the autonomy given to the students—what amounts to relative independence coupled with real responsibility—seems unique and contributes to the facility’s general success and low recidivism rate.

My workshop was offered through the LEAP afterschool enrichment program, which accepted students by application and interview only. Students have to really want be there, but they aren’t necessarily more advanced academically—in fact, some have learning disabilities or lag behind their peers in literacy. The coordinator told me these students were “very, very interested in poetry,” and this gave me a little thrill; after all, how often does any teacher hear that, in any setting? Six students had signed up for my poetry workshop. In the large, airy room with the steady hum of the window unit air conditioner, I arranged my materials and reviewed my lesson plan, fidgeting and glancing repeatedly at the clock, waiting for them to arrive. They came in one by one, dressed neatly in embroidered polo shirts and pressed khakis; they greeted the coordinator, their afterschool teacher, and another volunteer, who were all along for the ride. Everyone was Miss or Ms. Something-Or-Other. I wanted to tell them to call me Colleen, but I sensed this was against the rules, and I even wondered how something as simple as addressing someone might change the power dynamic, the comfort level, the status quo that preserves the atmosphere of peaceful order.

We all introduced ourselves; Josiah* liked to write, Jorge lived for hip hop, Marcus rapped, Darrell loved theatre, Devon read books, Rafael played basketball. They ranged from 16 to 19 years old and represented various ethnic/racial backgrounds; they sat expectantly, lined paper and pencils in front of them, ready to see where I was going to take them. I began by asking them what they thought of when they thought of poetry; their hands popped up and we created a long list on the board of words like music, rap, hip hop, rhythm, beats, rhyme, free verse, Tupac Shakur, slam, spoken word, stanza, sadness, deep feelings, pain, communication, personal, emotion, confidence, expression, understanding. It was an impressive list, considering how often most people think they know little to nothing about poetry. We briefly touched on poetry versus prose, poetic devices, techniques of language and line. We read a poem together; Philip Levine’s poem, “You Can Have It” , which explores his working-class roots and the devastating effect that the working life has on important relationships, seemed like a good pick. They were able to understand the poem well, but more importantly, they were able to identify with the speaker and his sorrow for his and his brother’s lost youth; certain lines really resonated with them: “We were twenty / for such a short time and always in / the wrong clothes, crusted with dirt / and sweat. I think now we were never twenty.”

Since they were on board with “You Can Have It,” I wanted to solidify their interest by making an unexpected connection: Tupac Shakur’s “Dear Mama” is hip-hop’s answer to Levine’s poem; they all knew it and could in fact recite it. For the next five minutes, the room came alive with the rhythm of the song, performed from memory by my students, far more entertainingly and effectively than my own attempted reading of the lyrics. They found similar themes of love, loss, and regret between Levine’s poem about his brother and Shakur’s rap about this mother. Nodding in agreement with each other, they explained why Tupac still had a hold on them, thirteen years after his death: because he rapped about “what’s real,” about life, not just about “money and all the stuff he could buy.” He “wasn’t just gangsta.”

Taking a cue from Shakur and Levine, we segued into the writing exercise, keeping in mind that they themselves attributed communication, expression, and understanding to poetry. The prompt went something like this: Write about someone important to you. Describe the person; tell us something about him or her and about yourself. Is there something you wish you could tell him or her? Do you wish you could go back and change something about your relationship? Let us know why this person is so important to you. Set your poem in a particular time and place in your past and/or your present. Use some of the techniques we talked about today.

For the next 20 minutes, they wrote busily, steadily, furiously—except Marcus, who had been one of the most vocal so far. He said he believed he could only write poetry when he was really emotional, and since he was really content, the poem wasn’t flowing. He had tried to write a rap, but it was “too hot.” We talked about some ways to write about being content—how happiness can be just as tangible as sadness. He wrote, but when he read his piece, he had abandoned happiness in favor of the deep-seated fear of abandonment, stemming from the loss of his own family. As others read their work, I heard similar ideas rising to the surface, spilling over in a rush of ink and emotion. Josiah described terrifying domestic abuse: “Your dad said he was gonna kill us / but we stood up to him and showed him we were tough….I felt like your guardian angel / and that I had to protect you.” Jorge’s poem included the line “my own choices have led me here”—which his teacher later told me was the first time she ever heard him take responsibility for his actions. Darrell used powerful images of tiny rooms to describe isolation, loneliness and being trapped both physically and emotionally. Devon’s poem was an homage to his own mother. And Rafael’s poem, perhaps, struck me the most: “Bang, Bang, Bang! / Three shots ring out again. / He’s down; I take cover… / So I sat there talking to a dead body; / that was my homey, my best friend, my family.” Each student’s reading was followed by the other students reiterating what they’d heard in the poem: pain, strength, courage, sadness, fear, music, hope. In this part of the workshop, they heard that others were listening to them, that their words were received and understood.

The program coordinator asked for permission to post their poems around the facility so others could read their work. Shyly, with a glimmer of excitement, they agreed to polish the pieces and share them—another chance to share their stories, to be heard. They high-fived me and asked me to come back so they could write more poetry. As I walked through the main gate to go home—again, a beautiful structure, but probably more appealing when one is able to walk out of it—I decided I’d return every other month, so I’m due back there soon. It was an amazing experience—my expectations were challenged and exceeded; the students were enthusiastic and honest in their work and in sharing their ideas, even painful and difficult ones; on top of that, it made me rethink how I can better integrate my roles of teacher and writer. I hope these young men experienced the freedom that comes with creative writing and felt pride in themselves and their work. I’m excited to see what else the students are capable of, what else they’re interested in, and what else we can discover together about poetry.

When Gerry asked me to share my story, I immediately said yes. But you, his readers, may be wondering—aside from the loose connection between jail and crime writing, what does poetry have to do with anything? Good question. As a poet, of course I believe that poetry pervades every aspect of life. But the deeper, more relevant connection seems to be this: in both poetry and crime writing, every detail must serve a purpose; everything must build and build and create a place we’ve never been to but somehow can recognize, a world where the familiar and the foreign take us out of our own heads and thrust us into the larger world, equipped with the language to explore it.

As I sat in that classroom and watched my students process our conversations and put their thoughts on paper, I thought, about this teaching experience and about writing, “this could change my life.” I hope they felt the same way, and as readers and, perhaps, writers yourselves, I hope you do too.

* names have been changed

Colleen Coyne lives in Minneapolis and is an MFA candidate at the University of Minnesota, where she also teaches literature and creative writing. She is a mentor with the Loft Literary Center’s inkTank Teen Council and recently became the Editor-in-Chief of the literary journal dislocate. Prior to relocating to Minneapolis, Colleen received degrees from Johns Hopkins University and the University of Chicago, worked with at-risk youth in Baltimore and Chicago, and spent several years working in development and communications at the Hyde Park Art Center on Chicago’s south side. She can be reached at colleen.coyne [at] gmail.com.

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