A Developing Understanding...

I was 16 when I first went into that prison; The Smyrna correctional facility, in Smyrna Delaware. I remember thinking it looked so massive. The barbed wire appeared to stretch across the entire sky. Silver stars cascading between every cloud, floating in a sea of blue. The fences seemed so high that almost climbed into outer space. I couldn’t believe my eyes. People actually live here? The bricks were carefully mounded on top, one after the other, brick cement, brick cement to ensure the structure to never breathe. What is it like to live in a structure that never allows you to breathe? The weight of the lifelessness of such a building began to weigh heavy on my heart. I began to feel a loss of my breathe, with each step closer, and closer to the prison I began to feel my heart tighten. If I stepped inside I may suffocate. My surroundings faded; ba bump, ba bump, ba bump, ba bump, bump… bump… bu…mp... “Alonna its time to go in, the Cornell students are waiting for us…” Ok I’ll be right out, one second! I had to do it, I had to force my legs to release the cement stacks from beneath my feet, and allow me to walk again. I had to open the door, the wind pushing against the door suddenly attached with the intensity of a category 7 Hurricane. See its mother nature, it doesn’t want me to go in, the universe is protecting me. I can’t go in, I’m only 20 what if something happens, I want a family, a career… why did I decide to do this? “Alonna were going in, do you have your ID? Remember to leave your cell phone and everything else in the car.” “OK guys, yea I’m coming.” Suddenly the hurricane winds subsided, the cement disappeared and I moved forward.

This prison looked much different. It was built like a castle, but not one the Cinderella lived in. It reminded me of Dracula’s castle in Transylvania, Romania. The eerie feeling of death surrounded the building. The familiar breathless bricks were there, stacked stone cold one on top of the other, so solitary, so lifeless. I was out of the car, but I wasn’t sure how to make my feet walk through the gates…

On my first day at the prison, I vividly remember being so scared, and not knowing what to expect and how to act. After just completing my 3rd tutoring session, my views and opinions have definitely began to change, and the “big bad” prison is not so scary anymore. This week’s tutoring sessions was especially significant and eye opening for me; which is why I chose to juxtapose this week’s experience with my feelings prior to my tutoring sessions at Auburn prison.

In every tutoring session we begin with a piece of writing or a poem that is read aloud, and a brief discussion is held about those particular pieces. This week, after being so encouraged by the experiences and the inmates I decided that I wanted to bring in a discussion piece for this week. I chose 3 of my personal favorite poems, that when read in conjunction with one another have very similar themes and meanings. The three poems I chose to read this week were: I Too, by Langston Hughes, Still I Rise, by Maya Angeluo, and the last verse of Keep Ya’ Head Up by Tupac Shakur. The reason I chose these three pieces is because each write is from a very different era, each piece was written at leave 20 years apart but the pieces all had a similar theme. Each piece was talking about surviving from a struggle, overcoming obstacles, and moving on. These themes and these pieces evoked a lot of emotion in the prisoners and a discussion significant discussion began to form out of the context of these poems.
There were two comments in particular that struck me during the conversation, and both comments were directed towards me. Since the tutoring program is still in its beginning stages and the group of inmates is new and the group of tutors (myself) are new to the inmates; there are various trust struggles that come up in tutoring as well as in general discussions. One inmate asked me, “Why did you choose these poems? Are you trying to say somethin to us?” I was taken off guard by the directness of the question, and I said, “What do you think I would be trying to say?” and he simply replied, “What everyone else says; just cause you’re in prison doesn’t mean you can’t do nothing.” I was glad that the inmate clearly picked up on the symmetry between the poems, but that wasn’t what I wanted to imply with the poetry. So I told him, “All of those pieces were personal favorites of mine and I tried to find something that I thought everyone would enjoy to read.” At that second another prisoner chimed in, “We can relate to poetry like this, but the stuff on the test, the poems they give us… they’re not like this…” That’s what I truly began to understand, I knew exactly what he was saying, what they all were saying…

At that point I decided I wanted to help; as the discussion continued I asked my fellow tutors to find a poem in the GED book, so we could analyze that. Shortly after, ironically they found a Langston Hughes poem, “A Dream Deferred”.

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore-- And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over-- like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

I broke the poem down line by line, and explained it. I started by asking, “do you know what a dream deferred is?” Many prisoners didn’t understand the word “deferred”. After explaining that is was like a dream you could never get to, something you wanted to do but couldn’t accomplish… head began to nod and I knew they understood. After that we took it line by line, and got into Hughes imagery… “Can you see a raisin drying up in a sun?” or “have you ever smelled rotten meat?” After discussing this poem is seemed like the answer to the question jumped out at the prisoners and everyone got it correct.

This experience was very encouraging to me because not only did the prisoners begin to accept me, I began to accept them. Within a prison acceptance is a hard thing to understand. I knew that going into this internship; hence the fear and anxiety referenced to in the opening story. Now my opinions are beginning to change. I think the one thing I enjoy most about this experience is I learn and grow so much every Thursday night in two hours then I have in twenty years.

Other Poems We Read:
http://www.cswnet.com/~menamc/langston.htm - A Dream Deferred
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/i-too/ - I Too
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/still-i-rise/ - Still I Rise
http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Keep-Ya-Head-Up-lyrics-2Pac/C4EC4762B806B8824825686A000CD809 - Keep Ya Head Up Lyrics
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlQcJAjYxaI – Keep Ya Head Up Music Video