I spent most of yesterday trying to scale a small mountain of mail that had piled up in the month of December while I closed out my next-to-the-last semester I will ever teach full-time and organized the production and mailing of the first newsletter for the Louisiana Network for Criminal Justice Transformation. There were issues inside and outside the walls that had to be addressed during the month, of course, but overall, the mail still sat and then piled up, along with emails, especially after the newsletter went into Angola.
Some of the mail contained submissions for a theater production on solitary confinement we're going to put together to be performed on our campus in the spring. Essays, discussions, and poems were acknowledged and filed for later compilation and development of the project, but occasionally I would just have to read one. Which is how I came across the poem I'm publishing today. It reminds each of us -- no matter where we are, no matter what we have been through or what we may have to face in this coming new year -- that we continually evolve and have the option to consider who we are and who we want to be.
"Out of a 6 by 9 concrete, iron, and windowless cell"
by Ronald E. Williams
Out of a 6 by 9 concrete, iron, and windowless cell,
cold seeps in through plastic-covered windows on the tier.
Who am I in this cold cell,
through thoughts shaking to be put to use
like a '57 Chevy engine cranked up, ready to move?
A freedom fighter standing with my peers.
The Angola 3 prove: "If you don't stand for something,
you will fall for anything."
Trapped in the headlights like a deer,
see my eyes in captivity.
Like a prize fighter, my head is bloody but unbowed.
My mentor fed me reality
(each one teach one is how).
The gray and white of the 6 by 9 cells
turns into open air for all.
Lines traced more than 400 years tell us
injustice can be flipped to justice for many.
So out of a 6 by 9 concrete, iron, and windowless cell,
I fight the infringement of Constitutional rights.
Out of a 6 by 9 concrete, iron, and windowless cell,
I fight for judicial impartiality and fundamental fairness.
Out of a 6 by 9 concrete, iron, and windowless cell,
I fight for the right to health and safety at Angola.
Out of a 6 by 9 concrete, iron, and windowless cell,
cold seeps in through plastic-covered windows on the tier,
but still I fight against forced captivity and prison slave labor.
Out of a 6 by 9 concrete, iron, and windowless cell,
it matters not how you fight injustice,
Louisiana Network for Criminal Justice Transformation
will be there to aid.
Out of a 6 by 9 concrete, iron, and windowless cell,
Mr. Woodfox, Mr. King, Mr. Hooks, and others gave a hell of a thought:
"Learn, teach, fight for what's right -- and stand for something."
Out of a 6 by 9 concrete, iron, and windowless cell,
I fight the injustice many prisoners at the
Louisiana State Penitentiary face every day.
Out of a 6 by 9 concrete, iron, and windowless cell,
no matter the cold that seeps in
through plastic-covered windows on the tier,
I fight for what's right.
Out of a 6 by 9 concrete, iron, and windowless cell,
I fight to learn more about who I am and who I can be,
asking myself and the world outside:
"Who am I?"
________________________________________________________
NOTE: You may write to Ronald E. Williams (DOC #403681) at Louisiana State Penitentiary, CBC U/R #14, 17544 Tunica Trace, Angola, LA 70712.
No comments:
Post a Comment