10.25.09
Know Thyself
Annual training today at the prison. I’ve heard the presentation three times now, and it doesn’t change much. Though the woman leading the training today, I thought, did so in a manner that was more true to reality, as well as more sanity and compassionate based than the others I’ve attended.
The first two trainings I attended seemed mostly to focus on scaring the shit out of volunteers. Maybe that’s a necessary step in the initiation process. First you fear them, then you understand how to work with them. It never worked like that for me. I don’t worry about the men manipulating me (though some of the trainers would say that’s a sign you are being manipulated). I don’t have irrational fears about the men finding me on the outside or asking their family or friends to find me. I don’t have nightmares about prison riots (though when they said today that our emergency contact would be the person they would call in case I a) had a heart attack while inside or 2) if a riot broke out — and I thought, crap, don’t call my mom if a riot breaks out!).
At these trainings manipulation by inmates is typically the topic we spend the most time on. Trainers go through a lengthy list of all the ways the men will try to manipulate us. First by befriending us. Second by being a star student, so as to garner our attention and admiration. Third by asking for favors. Fourth by asking to correspond with us outside of the program. And so on and so on. All of these things do, of course, happen. It can be difficult to know if an inmate is simply a good student or is in the process of trying to manipulate you. You never know, unless something obvious does happen (such as a request to call a family member and relay a message). Even if the obvious happens though, there’s a part of me that has always thought–can you blame these guys?
The prison culture is one of manipulation, power and control. That’s how you survive. It’s also how you entertain yourself in an extremely myopic universe. Their world on the inside is small. They have an abundant amount of time to think about what they want and how to get it. I never assume that any attempt to manipulate me is malicious or ill intended. I always assume this is how they have learned to survive (probably before they even arrived in prison). Which means it’s up to me to be clear about my boundaries.
Sometimes I think this issue of boundaries is part of my reason for working on the inside. I often struggle with boundaries on the outside. Saying yes to too many people. Rescuing friends and family in that way therapists always tell you not to do. Having too much empathy for people I barely even know. But on the inside I have no choice but to maintain boundaries of all kinds. It’s the professional way to run a program and to manage a classroom. Boundaries keep expectations and roles clear. I have to be able to say no at times, otherwise the guys would have me taking home entire novel manuscripts to read and critique and I don’t have that sort of time to offer. Boundaries let them know what I can do for them and what I can’t do for them. If I’m clear, then no one’s feelings get hurt, including my own. So far, it’s worked.
I’ve never wanted to rescue the men in prison. Maybe being a part of a program other than a religious group or AA makes that easier. I’m not out to redeem anyone’s soul, or forgive them their sins or cure of them of an addiction. I’m there to help them look at their life story and write it down. The work is their own and they can choose to do with our program what they will. Right now, for example, we have a guy who on the first night told us he was only there to watch (which basically means he’s trying to pass time, but isn’t all that interested. It’s happened before, we don’t mind). At the last meeting though (our third visit with this group) he was silent for almost the entire meeting and then, as another inmate discussed his story idea, this “silent” man was suddenly participating. Something had touched him and there he was giving feedback. We don’t make a big deal out of it in the group, but we certainly notice. It just works best to let them decide what they want from our program. While I hope that what they want is to re-examine their life and choices, putting them in a new context and thus experience some growth or enlightment about who they are (and can be) as human beings. I haven’t found it difficult to let go of any attachment I might have to that outcome for each of them. We are all a work in progress, right? And we are each on a journey. It’s not my job to rescue them from what they need to experience.
What I most appreciated about the trainer today was that she kept reminding us that manipulation is not a phenomenon unique to prison. People on the outside manipulate. None of the previous trainers ever pointed out this obvious fact, but in doing so she reminds us that inmates are human, using reliable survival skills that we all learn along the way. So, the message I took away today is, know yourself–both inside prison and outside. Know yourself and you will not compromise yourself or your program.
08.02.09
Endings and beginnings, part 1
I’ve been silent here on the blog for several weeks now. Not good for consistent readership, I know. Perhaps not even good for continuity, maintaining that “dream” that Gardner says is so essential to a well-told story. Yet, the pause I’ve taken here, reflects a pause I’ve taken in my life in general. In the language of the hero’s journey, I suppose I’m back again at the Threshold—between what was my ordinary world and what will become my new world. Ordinary being graduate school and all that came with it. New world being life after graduation. Ordinary being the work I’ve been doing with the guys in the Twin Rivers Unit at Monroe. New being the discussions about shifting our program over to the Washington State Reformatory (a different holding unit at Monroe) beginning in September. Ordinary being the guys I’ve gotten to know at TRU. New being the guys I will get to know at WSR. Ordinary being having the excuse of “homework” to bail out on dinner parties I didn’t want to attend, weekend activities I didn’t want to participate in, etc. New being how to hold onto the space I created for my writing time without the respected excuse of it being school work. Ordinary being always having a looming deadline to force me to my desk. New being having the responsibility of imposing my own deadlines.
Two weeks ago today, I graduated. I haven’t written much, telling myself it is okay to take a small vacation. But while I haven’t been writing, life has been quickly filling the hours I once spent at my desk and just like that I find myself having promised too much time to things other than writing, and now I’m struggling to take them back—those precious hours. I’m getting “twitchy”, as a writer friend of mine would say. That terrible state for a writer, when you want to write, but don’t write and then suddenly find yourself yelling at the checkout girl at the store, at your boyfriend, your mother or some random news anchor on the television for no reason other than you’re not writing and it’s driving you crazy.
Perhaps that’s the thing about being at the Threshold—where you are one foot in what was the ordinary world and one foot in what will be the new world—it’s a little maddening. The old rules don’t apply and the new rules haven’t been set yet. The old schedule that once worked, doesn’t fit with the new life, but the new schedule hasn’t been created. So, it’s limbo. A writer’s purgatory. Without being too overdramatic, I hope, I am the guy who has just been released from prison, trying to make it through his first day on the outside.
I told myself I’d take until my birthday in early September before I worried about getting back on a writing schedule. I’m not sure I can hold out that long. Not because I’m anal, or hard on myself, or incapable of resting, but because I’m incapable of not being a writer. Two intense years of school have not set me up to take a break from the writing, they’ve set me up to write. So I must. This is the first significant piece of writing I’ve done since graduating, and already I feel better reading over these words, watching the white space on the page fill.
06.03.09
Article on race, incarceration and shame
This article by Helen Epstein in The New York Review of Books is worth a read, particularly her discussion of race and rates of incarceration. Statistics such as, “nationally, one black man in nine between the ages of twenty and thirty-four is incarcerated, a rate six times higher than for whites in the same age group” are sobering. Also of interest is her discussion of “shame” as it relates to violence.
America’s Prisons: Is there hope?
05.20.09
It’s all story
Tonight I am prepping to go up to the prison on Wednesday. I’ll be presenting two archetypes found in a hero’s journey, the Threshold Guardian and the Shapeshifter. I’m chuckling about how both describe so well our encounter with the custody officer last time, the one who was so particular about our paperwork. As a guard, he is clearly a Threshold Guardian, a character who stands between the ordinary world and the special world of the hero’s journey, trying to convince the hero to turn back, give up, lose faith in his mission. As a Shapeshifter, he morphed from a guard who is typically welcoming and easy to work with to one who is controlling and penalizing, thus keeping us on our toes, adding tension to our story of being volunteers in the prison. It helps to be able to see the experience this way—as elements of a story. Wednesday night, when we return, we’ll know to be prepared for him to shift again. No experience is the same up there. No rule or procedure firm (as much as they’d like you to believe it is). It’s intriguing to consider that my own personality tends to be one that works to please, not make mistakes, follow the rules and receive praise for not being a trouble maker, so of course I was shook up by the guard’s dissatisfaction with our paperwork. And when our argument that “this is how we’ve always done it” failed (i.e.—reasoning with him failed) I felt as if I had personally failed. But it’s all a game. A constantly changing game. And, strangely, I think it’s good for me. Like the heroes our guys are trying to write about, like heroes who have walked this journey through the centuries, I have to learn to expect the unexpected, to be challenged just when I’m getting comfortable, to be knocked back when the road gets too easy and familiar. That’s tension. And tension is story.
04.29.09
Better Man writes from the outside
I’ve added a new page to the blog (see the column to the right). There I will post journal entries sent to me by a former member of our Hero’s Journey Writing Group up at Monroe. He has served his prison time and is now embarking on the next step of his sentence — probation.
He and I have discussed that he is taking a risk by posting here. While overwhelmingly readers of this blog are considerate in their opinions even if they disagree with me, I recognize that allowing an inmate to speak for himself might be difficult for some. Without me to filter the experience of being up at Monroe, what you are left with is the raw reality — what it is like on the inside and the outside. Better Man, as he’ll go by here, will chronicle, for as long as he feels up to it, what life is like for an inmate recently released from prison. Given that his crime requires he now register as a sex offender, you can imagine that the “outside” is not the easiest place to be. I note that he is a registered sex offender here in this posting because I am sensitive to the fact that some readers might want to choose to not read Better Man’s postings. That said, I hope most readers will choose to read on as I think you will be surprised and intrigued by the story he has to tell.
Posting Better Man’s writings here is in many ways the ultimate goal of my work at Monroe — to bring the stories of those on the outside and the stories of those who are serving or who have served time together. We don’t have to forgive Better Man, or even have sympathy for him, but we can read his postings and try to understand a little better, try to expand our own thinking, question our own beliefs, check in with ourselves when we find his words troubling. He is an honest writer, one of the best writers we had in the group.
I’ll be monitoring comments left on Better Man’s postings and will allow most to post, even if they disagree or take issue with something he has written. I will not however, allow hateful, intimidating or unnecessarily explicit comments. He is here to tell his story, and the only battle I want him to worry about winning is building a safe and productive life for himself. Questions? Ask them. Stories of your own to tell? Tell them. I will also, at times, write my own responses to things Better Man writes. This is how we come to understand one another — by talking.
That said, welcome, Better Man. I, for one, am glad you are here to add to this conversation. And thank you to my readers for taking this risk with me and him.
04.07.09
A conversation worth a listen…
The conversation with Judy Lightfoot and seniors at the University of Washington on my local NPR station, KUOW, on working with the homeless struck a cord with me. Many of the things said about why Judy and her students work with homeless people are similar to many of my own reasons for working with prisoners. In particular, she noted that sometimes she feels selfish because she gets so much out of meeting and talking with the people she comes into contact with. I agree. Also, she noted how important it is to get out and meet people not like yourself. If I ever have kids of my own, I think this is the one piece of advice I will give them over and over.
Listen to the conversation, titled, Reaching Out to Homeless People, here: http://www.kuow.org/program.php?id=17277
Additionally, you can read a post Lightfoot wrote on the subject of working with the homeless at: http://crosscut.com/blog/crosscut/18911/
And, finally, follow Lightfoot’s blog at: http://freestylevolunteer.wordpress.com.
02.16.09
thinking beyond prison
I just returned home from an interesting discussion with two fellow islanders about how to use the hero’s journey to work with verterans. Is it possible that there are similiarities between prisoners and soldiers (is it possible there are similiarities between all of us?)? It seems there may be. Stepping back from the labels of soldier and prisoner, aren’t we talking about individuals who have journeyed away from home and experienced or witnessed something that they cannot easily relate to others upon their return? That is a hero’s journey. And aren’t we talking about people who may or may not be able to see themselves as heroes? The prisoners certainly struggle with such an idea (and many of us on the outside would struggle to apply the word “hero” to a prisoner, wouldn’t we?). Where in our societal mythology relating to the story of prisoners do we ever refer to them as the hero of the story? With veterans you would think it would be obvious — of course they are heros. But do they see themselves and their experiences that way? Do they embrace the label or shy away from it? Shouldn’t we give them room to explore the issue rather than demanding they be our heroes, act as we expect a hero to act. Doesn’t a soldier have a right to his personal story? To have a story different from other soldiers? To tell a story other than the one many us of, perhaps, would be comforted to hear?
I wondered too about how difficult it must be for a veteran to choose what to share and with who. I experienced this restraint in storytelling with the men at Monroe. They have to know first that you can handle it, that what they tell you is not going to scare you away. Returning from war must be like that. I think soldiers must assume most of us cannot handle the “real” stories. And maybe we can’t. But someone has to be able to listen, someone has to be able to stand in that space with them and say, the story you have to tell me does not scare me. Someone has to say to them, tell me your story. I want to listen. Not to comment, not to judge, not even to presume to help you heal. But just listen.
The people I was talking with said, we are trying to figure out what it might really mean to support the troops once they return home. I don’t know that I can think of a more honorable way to support the troops than honoring their individual stories. They certainly are not prisoners, and yet I bet, if you asked, you’d find most of them are familiar with feeling as if they have locked away parts of themselves. Many of them must feel the pressure of being defined by their experiences at war.
Again, I find myself thinking of prison as a state of being, not a place. What parts of ourselves do we lock away and why? What stories do we not tell and why? Who are we trying to protect? Ourselves? Our family? Society? What is the purpose of this protection? What do we fear would happen if we unlocked those stories and let them roam free for a while? What systems of support do we need to feel safe enough to speak? What systems truly rehabilitate? What systems truly heal? These aren’t just questions for the US correctional system. These are questions for each of us, everyday.
02.04.09
Considering stillness
“It is as if Americans typically have their moments of stillness when those moments are framed on both sides by violence. It is a peculiarly American form of Zen enlightenment, when stillness can only justify itself by planting itself amid uproar.” from Burning Down the House by Charles Baxter
Baxter’s essay on stillness in writing got my attention. Not only because it is a concept I have not given much thought to other than when conversing with poets (who have a knack for the art of stillness and silence in their work). Reading the essay I’m in agreement with Baxter, including stillness in fiction (probably any prose) is difficult. It is a state of being that almost doesn’t belong in a narrative that by nature is focused on plot and action. If the action is still, what is left? Atmosphere, for one, Baxter offers. By which he means setting, perhaps. But he also talks about how for a moment the story becomes about focusing on the minutiae of the story. Not the dreams and desires, but actually allowing the character to exist in the moment with what exists around her. Tough.
When I got to the quote above in the essay, I suddenly found myself thinking about the guys at Monroe. How their lives, at the moment, almost embody what Baxter is saying. They are stillness surrounded on both sides by violence. Mind you, it is a forced stillness (or you could argue it was a choice, that’s another conversation). Or maybe they are stillness surrounded on one side by violence, that is the act(s) that brought them to prison. On the other side is what might be once they are released. Of course for too many, release does not equal rehabilitation and they find themselves back again, relegated to stillness, to the minutiae of their cell, the prison yard, the chow hall.
No doubt there is drama, plot and action on the inside. If anything such states are amplified. Living in such a regulated and intimate environment how could there not be drama, story lines that keep the mind entertained from day to day, month to month, year to year. And yet, it is as if their story, or a part of their narrative anyway, has stopped and there is a moment of stillness. It’s a life suspended. A narrative suspended. And how interesting that the one of the few places you can find such a state of being is inside prison walls.
Does enough violence ultimately bring a moment of stillness? Do these men crave such a reprieve from the chaos of their lives on the outside that the violent acts are in some way a search for stillness? Certainly there is not that much consideration put into a violent act, but if there was? And if we can reach them during this moment of stillness — with programs and therapy — can we lessen their chances of returning to the violence? If stillness and violence co-exist then what are the changes for rehabilitation?
Questions. This work always brings up more questions than answers.
01.20.09
Violence and Language
I’ve begun to prep for going up to the prison tomorrow night. I’ve been gone for too long and look forward to catching up with the guys, hearing about their holidays, seeing what they think about the inauguration of President Obama today. I was thinking about how I’d like to bring them something from my MFA residency, something that I learned, something I think might help them. So, I was going back through my pages and pages of notes last night and came across Naomi Shihab Nye’s quote, “Every act of violence is a betrayal of language. We believe in language.”
Nye’s quote is a call to action. Since beginning my work at Monroe (and probably well before that actually) I have been deepening my conviction that art and activism go hand in hand, and Nye reminded me that my goals for myself as a writer are two fold. First, to tell good stories that reveal to readers something about humanity and the human experience they might not have known or considered. Second, well, it’s lofty, but to change the world with words. That’s all. Easy, right?!
As I thought about getting to see the guys tomorrow and I read Nye’s quote again I also started to think about how it applies to them, to men who have already chosen violence at least once in their lives, if not several times. I began to think about how these men were raised by other men and women who chose violence too often and language too little. I began to think about the struggle they face when they are released to not return to violence. It might be too idealistic to hope that part of what I am doing up there is replacing violence with language, but for some of these men I think it is true. I think they will be able to walk out beyond the walls of the prison someday holding onto their stories, stories that if they’d gotten to tell instead of suppress, might have (might have) set them on a different path, and if they clutch those stories hard enough, hang onto their words with all the strength they have, then they can believe in the power of language, as Nye calls us to do.
I’ll bring them Nye’s quote tomorrow evening and hope that a few of them will be as inspired and encouraged as I am each time I read it.
01.08.09
The poem she read
I’m here in Boston at school. Tonight I would normally be at the prison, working with the guys, hearing about celebrating Christmas and the new year behind bars. Perhaps talking resolutions, or at least hopes. Hearing new stories, writing new stories. Laughing. Perhaps crying. But I’m here, surrounded by words and lovers of words who still get to roam the outside and this is certainly my heaven, but I am cognizant of where I am not this evening. I am not behind the walls where I sometimes feel like I better belong.
Tonight though, at a poetry reading, Naomi Shihab Nye read a poem about her experience meeting with a group of prisoners at a maximum security prison. And as I listened, and as she spoke so eloquently via her poetry, about being changed by her experience of meeting with these men I thought of the guys at Monroe and how appreciative they would be that this woman stood at the podium and gave voice to their stories. I know that most of the time they feel as if they are forgotten, as if their stories, like them, have very little chance of making an escape over the walls. But if they only knew that there are others out here, speaking, and speaking beautifully, on their behalf, trying to give voice to the voiceless, trying to include them in the conversation, despite their absence they would be so lifted. I couldn’t have been more pleased that she chose to read the poem she did. And I’d like to think that it had something to do with the fact that I introduced myself earlier in the day after her lecture and thanked her for including prisoners in her work to bring stories of different people and cultures together. And I’d like to think that she understands there are so many, men and women, tonight, sitting in cells, who could just as easily sit amongst us students, just as easily keep up with our pens and some who could even make us stop and say, damn, now that’s a story, now that’s a writer.
My thanks to Naomi Shihab Nye for speaking of and for the prisoners tonight. It was only one poem amongst a reading of beautiful poems, but it made me think of the guys at Monroe and how I look forward to seeing them soon.
