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  • GET INVOLVED
    • Join Our Email List
    • Bring Free Minds to Your Group
    • On the Same Page: Write Night
    • Intern or Volunteer With Us
    • Give Poetry Feedback
    • Work With Us
  • DONATE
    • Donate Online
    • Other Ways to Donate
    • Employer Matching Gifts
    • Donate Books
    • New! Merch Store
  • About Us
    • Mission & Vision
    • Who We Are
    • In The Press
    • Supporters
    • National Projects
    • Resources For Educators
    • Resources For Incarcerated People
    • New! Merch Store
    • Contact Us
  • Our Work
    • Book Clubs and Writing Workshops
    • Reentry Services
    • On the Same Page
    • Books by Free Minds
    • Connect Magazine
    • Congressman John Lewis Fellowship
    • Thrive Under 25
    • Success Stories
  • News & Events
  • Poems
  • Contact Us

Yours, The Reader (Perception)

Yours, The Reader (Perception)

By Free Minds Book Club | February 27, 2013 | 3

By AL See, deception will mask its own perceptionThe seed you sowIs the seed you’ll showSo that’s the seed I’ll knowSo try and dig it upBut your roots are what…

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Don’t Nothing Change But the Clothes I’m In

By Free Minds Book Club | February 25, 2013 | 3

Happy Valentines Day – XOXOBy CM  I think about it all the timeWhat we could have beenI tried to show you what I feltBut you couldn’t comprehend Your smile, your eyes, your…

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Today is a Bad Day

By Free Minds Book Club | February 22, 2013 | 4

By MS Today is a bad dayI wish I’d never had one beforeBut bad days consume my lifeI have no escape from themToday is a day when I wonder…Where is…

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Lead By Example

By Free Minds Book Club | February 20, 2013 | 5

By GB I was always told to lead, never followThat way you can avoid falling in any hollow‘Cause once you fall in that hole, it might not be so easy…

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Make it Happen

By Free Minds Book Club | February 13, 2013 | 4

By SK Every time I look in the mirror I ask myselfDo I like who I am?Sometimes I hate myselfAnd want to be a better man Overall I love meAnd…

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About the Poetry Blog

The poets featured on this page are currently incarcerated, and many of them are in federal prisons far from home. Your feedback is a valuable source of motivation and connection to the outside community. Post your comments, feedback, and encouragement in the space below the poem, and it will be passed on directly to the author. Comments may not appear immediately on the site, as our team processes them to mail to the poets.

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Upcoming Events

On the Same Page: Write Night

January 27, 2021, 7:00 – 8:30 PM

Read and respond to poetry by incarcerated writers! Registration is required; click here to RSVP.

Free Minds Book Club & Writing Workshop

Free Minds uses books, creative writing, and peer support to awaken incarcerated and formerly incarcerated youths and adults to their own potential. Through creative expression, job readiness training, and violence prevention outreach, these poets achieve their education and career goals, and become powerful voices for change in the community.

Winner of the 2015 Aspen Ideas Award from the Aspen Institute, the Justice Potter Stewart Award from the Council for Court Excellence, and the Library of Congress Best Practices in Literacy Award.

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