Kenneth E. Hartman’s is the third book to come out this fall written by men doing time. I’ve written before about Dwayne Betts’ A Question of Freedom and Jarvis Masters’ That Bird Has My Wings, and now I want to share a few words about Mother California: A Story of Redemption Behind Bars by Kenneth E. Hartman.
Hartman has done twenty-nine years in five California prisons. The years Hartman writes of are the years in which I’ve known the California Department of Corrections (“Rehabilitation” has recently been added to the department’s title, but as nearly all programming is about to be cut beginning next year, there’s no rehabilitation happening other than what the men and women inside create for themselves).

I know what I know due to the various poetry workshops I’ve taught inside, as well as to researching and writing a manual for artists working in prison for the state’s Arts in Corrections program. Through teaching, interviewing staff, or sitting in visiting rooms, I’ve been in at least half of California’s thirty-three prisons. I’ve learned most from close friendships with former students – including a recent collaboration with Spoon Jackson on our book: By Heart: Poetry, Prison, and Two Lives. Spoon, Coties, Elmo, Smokey and the others are all lifers and each has served Hartman’s twenty-nine years and more.

Hartman tells not only his personal story, but also the broader story of what’s happened in California prisons in the past three decades. Both narratives are compelling, well written, factual (and accurate to what I know and hear), and incredibly important. I’ve appreciated all three books out this fall, but in many ways, Hartman’s got to me most. Due to his own skill, I’m sure, but also because so much that he writes mirrors the experiences and expressions of the men inside whom I know best.

Hartman’s personal story is one that moves from adolescent evil to adult consciousness. The book’s publisher – writer and editor James Atlas – comments on the book’s first line, which he feels is impossible to forget: “When I was nineteen, I killed a man in a drunken, drugged-up, fistfight.” Hartman immediately lets the reader know: “Anyone who knew me could have seen it coming.” He’d been in trouble for years and had spent a long time in the juvenile justice system. He was state raised (thus “Mother California”) and ended up with a life without possibility of parole sentence.

Hartman shares some of the familial reasons that logically led to his becoming such an angry young man, but there’s no blame or self-pity in his writing. Mostly his narration is objective, almost that of a journalist, not denying emotion but maintaining steady sight, and at just the right distance to allow intimate vision and wider understanding. In this way we watch the young race-identified white man do all kinds of bad in his first years in prison. And we watch, too, his increasing consciousness and self-directed change.

Since “increasing consciousness and self-directed change” is the path I’ve watched my former students walk, I am deeply curious about what encourages such opening. In Hartman’s case, writing played a part, but mostly it was love – first from (and to) his wife (who saw and reflected the good that was in him) and eventually from (and to) his beloved daughter. Although our era keeps moving away from this knowledge, everyone I know who works with young people or people in prison knows this exact truth: deep growth comes through love and bright reflection, not through punishment and negativity.

Eventually Hartman works with others to establish what’s called the Honor Program at Lancaster (California State Prison – Los Angeles County). I know a group of prisoners at New Folsom (California State Prison – Sacramento) who are also old lifers, also sick of their part in perpetuating race hatred in prison, also sick of negativity instead of steady encouragement toward greater humanity. This group, too, brings men together to do deep work on their own spirits. I’ve learned so much about real – self-directed and group-supported – change from these men. I wish the wider voting public understood that this kind of work – prisoner-led – is going on all over the country. I welcome Hartman’s report.

As Spoon and I prepare for the April 2010 release of our book, I am so glad for these three other books. “Each man does his own time,” as the saying goes, and Betts, Masters, Hartman, and Spoon Jackson prove that point. Each man “came awake” inside, but each journey was unique and not programmable. (written by Judith Tannenbaum)

Please email me (rorypavach@gmail.com) or Professor Doran Larson
(dlarson@hamilton.edu) with any questions about the project.

Phyllis Kornfeld – whose Cellblock Visions is a powerful and beautiful collection of art made by people in prison – has begun the Inside/Outside Envelope Project. As Phyllis describes: “Envelope art is a long-standing tradition in prison art. Beautiful envelopes sent to loved ones communicate a deep connection. The Inside/Outside Envelope Project is expanding that connection. Incarcerated men and women donate their pre-stamped, ready for use, envelope art to be sold as a fundraiser. 100% of the proceeds benefits non-profit organizations.”

Anyone interested in helping with a tax deductible contribution, send to:
A.P.E. Ltd.
126 Main St
Northampton, Ma 01060
(with a memo “For the  Inside/Outside Envelope Project.”)

That Bird Has My Wings: The Autobiography of an Innocent Man on Death Row is Jarvis Jay Masters’ second book, and it comes with endorsements by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Van Jones, author David Sheff, and many others. Although Masters writes of the crimes he’s committed, as well as those he’s innocent of though convicted – and although he writes some about his life on San Quentin’s Death Row – That Bird focuses primarily on Masters’ childhood and coming of age.

Much of what Masters reports is heart breaking: being left to watch over young siblings with no food to feed them, beatings and cruelty of foster care families, being set up to fight for bets by older male relatives, choices he makes against his own best interest. But Masters also describes the love he shared with his sisters, his wonderful first foster parents, the neighbor who silently left food for the children each morning, his caring though drugged mother. When life gave him a chance, Masters was the little boy he was born to be: loving, sweet, curious, responsible.

The story Masters shapes for the first two-thirds of the book lets the reader in very close as the child tries to make sense of his experience, as he learns to protect himself from hurt, and eventually, as he comes to feel most comfortable in institutions. Masters’ telling is honest, well written, deeply (humanly) interesting.

The last third or so of the book is also interesting, honest, and well written, but to me feels tacked on – more like a handful of essays than the continuation of an unfolding story. Perhaps the publisher felt the book needed to include stories from prison itself.

Both Masters and his publisher (HarperOne) seem to want the book to speak out most strongly about the foster care system. An important goal that Masters achieves. But I think the book does even more than this. That Bird shows one life – its huge difficulties and its few gifts – and how a being is shaped by both. (written by Judith Tannenbaum)

The Otter Creek Players, a creative arts group at the Otter Creek Correctional Facility in Wheelwright, KY, produced an original play this summer called Finally Free, which explored the themes of confinement and freedom.

Finally Free was produced through the Thousand Kites Project at Appalshop.  We were fortunate enough to be able to create an audio recording of the production at Otter Creek. Listen to the opening segment here, in which every woman in the group is heard:

Finally Free

Check out the Thousand Kites website to learn more about the project at Otter Creek, and to download a copy of the script.

One woman in the group wrote this poem in connection with the play:

This Fabulous View

I have this fabulous view from my narrow, bullet-proof plexi-glass rectangle.

I only see the beauty of the trees; the wonder of all living things I am encircled by, and the awe that it inspires within me.

I choose not to see the barbed and razor-wire, rough and sharply surrounding the “compound.”

You see, even though they have taken custody of this body, my mind is free to roam and wander to wherever I choose; beyond any physical limitations I may have.

I refuse to let them have the last word, the last laugh, the last of my sanity…

In my world, I can decide what I will allow to be or not to be. I’m the boss and you’re not, so don’t think you’re the boss of me…I control what is and what will be.

In my world, there is no such thing as captivity.

By Heart: Poetry, Prison, and Two Lives – a two-person memoir written by Judith Tannenbaum and Spoon Jackson — will be out in April 2010. You can read more about the book here (and sign up to be notified when the book is available).

R. Dwayne Betts – “a good student from a lower-middle-class family” – carjacked a man, went to prison, and has written a book about the experience. Betts was sixteen when he committed the crime, but tried and convicted as an adult; he served eight years in Virginia prisons. He’s been out for four years now and in that time has earned a BA, founded a book club for young men (YoungMenRead), been an intern at The Atlantic, married and become a father. Betts is now a graduate student at Warren Wilson College. His book of poetry – Shahid Reads His Own Palm – won the Beatrice Hawley Award and will be out from Alice James Books in May 2010.

A Question of Freedom is getting lots of attention (from NPR to HipHopWired), and I’m very glad. Those of us on the outside – the ones making decisions about who we lock up – need every report on prison we can get from those who’ve been there. Betts’ report is that of a very young man – a teen-ager still (“Sixteen years hadn’t even done a good job on my voice,” is the book’s first sentence) – and therefore shines important light on this aspect of contemporary US incarceration practice.

What I appreciate most in A Question of Freedom are the ways Betts attempts to:

1. understand why he was drawn to the uncharacteristic moment that brought him to prison;
2. express the responsibility he feels, especially to his mom;
3. speak out about all the young black men in prison with him, while at the same time working hard for a complex – rather than a simplistic – analysis of this fact;
4. present the varieties of senselessness he encountered in prison;
5. describe the various ways he educated himself (with some, but not much, help from prison programs or staff);
6. claim how literature – reading and writing – shaped the man he became as he walked out of prison.

Betts is no longer a teen-ager, but he is still a very young man. A Question of Freedom is being marketed as the first work of an emerging author, and that description makes sense. The book has the virtue of rawness – conveying as it does the confusion and circuitous thinking experienced by a child locked up with adults – and some beautiful writing. Betts’ telling also bears the (probably inevitable) limitations of a young mind that has not yet developed enough scope or distance to create a coherent whole. No matter the “more” I wish from the book, A Question of Freedom is important and I’m very glad to see it building a large readership. (written by Judith Tannenbaum)

We are pleased to share with you a link to the NPR/WLRN radio piece that aired on June 29, 2009. The spot highlighted the ArtSpring program facilitated by Amy Carol Webb and Lela Lombardo at Broward Correctional Institution.

Please follow this link and scroll down to June 29, 2009 to hear the recorded program.  The audio report by Chris DiMattei is listed under the heading “Local performing artists use song writing to help women living behind bars.”

Artspring gratefully acknowledges Public Domain Foundation, Puffin Foundation and Seminole Tribe of Florida for supporting this project.

Thank you for your continued support and interest in ArtSpring. We hope you are having a great summer!

Stefan Säfsten, a Swedish composer, has written two choral suites whose text
is the poems of Spoon Jackson (who is serving life without possibility of
parole in California). The church choir, Järva Röster, has performed the
songs in Europe and the United States. Cds of the work — Freedom for the
Prisoners and the recent Words of Realness — can be purchased at:
http://www.nosag.se/catalogue163.html

Spoon played Pozzo in San Quentin’s 1988 production of “Waiting for Godot,”
has published widely, and has won awards from the PEN Prison Writing
program. He is writing a two-person memoir with Judith Tannenbaum, his
poetry teacher at San Quentin; “By Heart” will be out in May, 2010.

Stefan has been a church musician in Kista parish outside of Stockholm since 1983, and was educated at the Royal University College of Music in Stockholm. He has worked with choirs spanning all age groups in the Kista parish. Stefan has conducted and led many different ensembles and choirs even before he began working in Kista. Stefan has a wide experience within most musical styles, and is as happy performing sacred music and chamber music as he is playing jazz, pop, and dance music. He has played in big bands, brass bands, and rock bands. He has also performed quite a bit of chamber music.

Stefan has also composed and arranged much music for different types of ensembles. During 2002 and 2003 he toured Germany and the Czech Republic with his choir, Järva Röster, performing the mass “Leva i världen” (Live in the World, nosag CD 057), which Stefan wrote in 1998.

Artwork is on display at the Queens Museum from artists incarcerated on Rikers Island. The New York Times ran the following story about the exhibit. Be sure to scroll through the images in the article to view the artwork:

At Queens Museum, Inmates’ Artistic Visions

They fell into trouble with the law, but now they are making art as they pursue their studies.

A variety of artwork — paintings, drawings, poems, plays and even pocketbooks made from newspapers — will be on view at the Queens Museum of Art tomorrow through July 5. The works were created by jail inmates at Rikers Island and juvenile delinquents participating in city-run programs for youthful offenders.

The participants in the show are working toward high school diplomas or General Educational Development high school equivalency diplomas, at the Austin H. MacCormick Island Academy and the Horizons Academy, on Rikers Island, and the Passages Academy, which works with juvenile delinquents in Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx.

For legal and privacy reasons, the artists are identified only by their first names and last initials. The organizers of the art show wrote in a short catalog accompanying the exhibition:

During the three years in which we have produced this joint art show, we have learned that to underestimate the creative potential of young minds is to waste an opportunity to witness the ability of the human spirit. These students continue to thrive under extreme and exceptional circumstances. The creative potential is unlocked by the commitment and relentless determination of great teachers.

The title of the exhibition, “Underestimate Me…No More,” was inspired by a poem by one young artist, Antoine B. The poem states, in part:

I will show you my worth
Show you my value
Underestimate me
Doubt me

 

Never
No More
I will rise
I will rise 2 every occasion
And I will continue to rise
Even when u think I’m falling

 

And when the dust settles
And you c me again!
You’ll underestimate this man
Never more!!!

NY1 also ran a story on the exhibit. Check out this video clip to hear interviews with family members of the artists and see some of the art displayed at the gallery.