Hi, sending cozy fall wishes to you all!
My model poem is
Freedom
by D. Hill (an incarcerated person in California)
Surrounded by armed men and barbed wire fences
Swallowed by thick solid gray concrete
Left with nothing but my own mind
That I use day and night
To dream about a light that
Upon sight slowly cures every ache.
From: Prison Journalism Project, April 2023.
● I love how this poet uses powerful, almost pulsing description and rhyming (light and
sight) and expresses their power of imagination to process and seek comfort in a carceral
environment. This poet also shows us how we can use art to weigh the hard things and
hope in both hands. The Prison Journalism Project publishes poetry by incarcerated poets
from around the United States, giving them a platform to share their story.
o Poet Hill, shares about finding power in dreaming and imagining his strength
and potential, do any dreams come to mind for you?
o If you were to describe what being in this facility is like to someone who has
never been in, how would you express the way it feels, sounds?
▪ When you imagine your future, what do you visualize, can you describe
the person you want to be?
Thanks for reading and sharing!
-Alyssa
