In August 2007, after 10 parole hearings (and being found suitable six times), Woodmore was finally released from prison.  While in prison, Woodmore obtained her GED, completed a vocational certification program, assisted with creating a battered women group, and became a member of an initiative to support youth at-risk of becoming ensnared in the criminal justice system.  Since her release, Woodmore has been active in advocacy campaigns with a range of local and statewide organizations, in an effort tot reduce California’s reliance on incarceration and harsh punishment.

]]> http://gabrielcity.com/news-and-journalism/soros-fellowship-for-woman-ex-prisoner.html/feed 0 http://gabrielcity.com/poetry-and-spoken-word/incarceration-nation.html http://gabrielcity.com/poetry-and-spoken-word/incarceration-nation.html#comments Wed, 14 Oct 2009 20:32:38 +0000 hcdmedia http://gabrielcity.com/?p=1893 Punishment
is the most potent stimulus
of violence
nothing corrodes the soul
as thoroughly as
vengeance.

(p.25, Hartnett)

Stephen John Hartnett, poet, musician, and prison activist, presents a collection of prison poems in varying tones and subjects in Incarceration Nation: Investigative Prison Poems of Hope and Terror. It is available for purchase on Amazon. Some excerpts are available to read for free  on Google Books.

Fish: A Memoir of a Boy in a Man’s Prison is T.J. Parsell’s autobiographical coming-of-age story from inside prison. When Parsell was seventeen, he held up a photo mat with a toy gun and then sentenced to four and half to fifteen years in prison. Upon arrival, he was drugged and raped by four prisoners and then decidedly “owned” by one. He was forced into a code of silence on penalty of death. Parsell is now one of America’s leaders in prison reform advocacy. His memoir is not only an unflinching portrait of prison life, but of a teenage boy coming of age, searching for his identity.

You can buy the book on Amazon.com.

“America is a nation of laws that reach into every aspect of public and private life. By just going about the daily routine of trying to make a living, you run the risk of transgressing one or more strands of this invisible web of legal strictures and restraints.”

Behind Bars: Surviving Prison by criminologists, Jeffery Ian Ross and Stephen C. Richards, (available on Amazon) is modeled after leaflets from the 60’s given to nonviolent demonstrators. Their book delves into surviving the criminal justice system on many more levels. It also includes a glossary of prison slang.

To be a prisoner’s mother
Is, upon a holiday,
To visit him in prison
Then part and go away.

To be a prisoner’s mother
‘Tis, inside the lonely wall,
To say, “Farewell, my darling”-
Oh, I almost faint and fall.

No resting place but heaven,
No happy morn that dawns;
Our home so drear and lonely
Because our boy is gone.

An empty bed, a missing plate,
A grief that inward burns;
No balm on earth to heal our hearts
until our boy returns.

“Honor and shame from no condition rise;
Act well your part, there all the honor lies.”

“The Prisoner’s Mother” by Mrs. S. E. Wirick (p.22 Prison Poetry, McKnight.)

Hiram Peck McKnight’s collection of prison poems from 1896 was republished in 2008 by Kessinger Publishing, LLC. The poems are available in hardcover from Amazon. Or you can read and download the poems on Google Books.

Excerpt from “The Two Prison Guards” from J.P. Keihl’s Tales From the Inside: Prison Poetry available to purchase on Amazon.

For the inmates in Monroe prison, it is the library that draws their attention. Equipped with reading material from sports magazines to novels, the library gives these men more than just a way to pass time, but also a way to readjust to the world once they are eventually freed. There are practical reference books offered for inmates, such as The Ex-offender’s Job Hunting Guide and Job Interview Tips for People with Not-So-Hot Backgrounds.

Read more about this library here.