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. These messages 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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Beef
By DJ
Beef
I had plenty of it while growing up
And ate so much one time I ended up throwing up
I’ve lost family members to it because I wouldn’t budge
Not realizing a hamburger shouldn’t hold a grudge
The definition of this word is not fit for our task
Even though we use it to hide behind our masks
To understand my view of beef you would have to be a contrarian
Because I would pray for all of my friends to be vegetarian
Finally, sometimes this meat consumes us all
I can hear anyone else’s story and understand their fall
I control my thoughts and actions now that I understand
And beef when it is rancid will no longer dictate my plans
Home Sweet Home, Right?
By KW
I thought after Medgar Evers, there’d be no more fear
In her home she knew she was safe!
I thought after Emmett Till, we shook up the world
In her home she knew she was safe!
I thought after Fannie Lou Hamer, we were done being sick and tired
In her home she knew she was safe!
I thought after Eric Garner, we would breathe a breath for relief
In her home she knew she was safe!
I thought after “Bloody Sunday,” Brother John woke up America
In her home she knew she was safe!
I thought after Dr. King, there’d be a “Table of Brother-Hood” in a nation
whose people are colorblind
In her home she knew was safe!
I thought after Aretha Franklin, falling in love with ourselves just as we are … is natural
In her home she knew she was safe!
I thought after Dorothy Heights, greatness is not measured by what a man or woman accomplishes
But by the opposition he or she has to overcome to reach his or her goals
In her home she knew she was safe!
I thought after Sean Bell, before 1 bullet would be sent at least 4 or 9 words would be spoken
In her home she knew she was safe!
I thought after Philando …Damn.
In her home she knew she was safe!
I thought after?
I thought after?
And that’s the problem!
How many more “Again?” until it ends?
Under our flag we are created equal
How many more “I thought after’s” until
Respect is giving to our flag?
We are killing our own people?
While wearing the flag
Our flag is a symbol of security
Stop killing our people!
Respect the flag, because
In her home she knew she was safe.
God Help America
I dedicated this to another American, Atatiana Jefferson, who was unarmed and killed in her home by a rookie police officer. Again?
Weapon of Choice
By MR
My mom’s once told me, “Son drop the gun and pick up a pen…”
And let your words become a weapon that’ll demonstrate
positivity amongst both women and men…
So I began to express my pain and disregard
my insecurities and shame…
Because I soon understood, being myself wasn’t a façade,
but a position of change…
So I no longer encourage violence when there’s a glorifying truth in talent…
Within the message to obtain balance and orchestrate proof
that will conquer the challenge…
That we face every day in modern society…
The system was designed specifically to degrade convicted felons,
so nobody would hire me…
However, I chose to remain clever…
Because resilience became an evolutional guidance that created
opportunities beyond measure…
So if my words can somehow inspire those who are lost to find
their truth and desires…
Then the sacrifice was worth me weaponizing my thoughts
instead of picking up a gun to fire …POW
Dear Self Respect (Part II)
By KW
I’m sorry I’ve made you feel neglected,
Unwanted, and disregarded.
I’ve treated you as though you didn’t matter.
As though you were lent?
I brushed you aside.
My pride I hide to ensure your position,
As the foundation of my decision-making.
You spoke.
I heard.
The heart listens.
Together – you’re right – we are unstoppable.
Thank you for your commitment.
Even in the face of my betrayal?
Your belief in our unity never fail.
I’ve held on too long to worthless, destructive,
And unproductive beliefs.
Pursuing expensive “wants,”
When you were enough for cheap.
So I acknowledge your rightful place in my life,
And vow to never abandon you twice.
Sincerely,
Me
Sadness in Your Heart
By JJ
When you have sadness in your heart,
you feel like a little person
and everybody is walking over you.
Your heart is crying,
but your soul is just sad.
There is hope.
You hope they do not look in your past
or you hope they forgive you for your past.
This is the only thing that can stop
the sadness in your heart.
Some nights I cry and some nights
I get mad at myself.
My mother and family is always there.
But when you are looking for somebody else
to talk to, there is nobody there.
You feel alone.
This is when sadness in your heart grows
and it gets bigger and bigger.
It makes you go crazy.
It makes you do things that you do not want to do.
You try to find love,
but you are looking in the wrong place.
You try to do things that you think will make you happy,
but it just puts more sadness in your heart.
The Terrible Bullet
By BB
Bullet, can I ask you a question?
Why are you so terrible?
In the wake of your onslaught things, turn horrible
See how you rip through bodies and kill so many dreams
Just a ripple from the trigger sends blood flowing in streams
Made by man but yet given a life of your own
You are not the solution because you break up many happy home
People dealing with issues thinking that you can solve them
Yet in the end, you become their greatest problem
Look at the damage that you do to their world
Taking the lives of innocent boys and girls
Oh bullet they say that you know no name
But yet in life you play such a deadly game
You have no eyes so therefore you cannot see
Blind to the fact that you are killing off humanity
I wonder if you knew your crimes would you repent
And if so would you claim that the deaths you caused wasn’t meant
Would you just blame man and absolve yourself of guilt
Wrapping your conscience up in an unmerciful quilt
Nothing but a piece of steel
Yet your fatal consequences are so real
I must ask of those who have emotions that feel
Why has bullet been given the power to kill?
Not even knowing those whom it may slay
Yet those precious lives will not live to see another day
Recently I read about the child that was shot and killed
I guess they had to go because this what heaven willed
But why were you so unsympathetic in what you did
Do you not realize that the life you took was that of a kid?
Oh mighty bullet let me ask you another question
Because every day your deadly deeds be having me guessing
I wonder at your worth but I still cannot figure it out
Death and destruction is what you are all about
Look at how you tore through that woman’s heart
Ripping her entire family apart
Then you have these greedy businessmen that become a gun dealer
Them as well as the triggerman is the real killer
Look at the precious souls that you have forsaken
You have become a favorite tool of Satan
Iron is supposed to be a precious metal
But it is used for the wrong purposes by the devil
He destroys the destroys the soul that he possess
Even the killer kills a part of themselves in the process
So bullet who do you answer to
Is destruction the only way that you pay your due?
All it takes is a pull of the trigger to unleash your fury
Shutting down all the factories that makes bullets would be the best theory
Because a lifeless bullet can take a life of its own
Once released into the air it is terror prone traveling at the speed of light
All it takes is one bullet to end a life
Causing grief and destroying so much
A lot of havoc can be reaped from a bullet’s touch
Man fingers the trigger and then he pulls it
Little does he realize the endless consequences of the terrible bullet
Off Course
By AW
The slave ship that doesn’t move
Nor never ever set sail
Motionless is it rooted
To the earth with no course
The middle passage of the mind
The children of slaves, no matter how
Many generations removed, are still
Slaves, when the mental chains
Are enforced with illusions of inclusion
Lebron James
Chow lines long and cold, economic foes
The mental sharks fed off of
The mental courses of dead and dying
Cattle dressed in Prada along
Middle Passage route,
On course to make a profit off of
Cargo of Black Gold
Lebron James
In dreams vividly, am I eaten alive
As I sink, thrown overboard
In chains and padlocks as if I am
Going to court on course to make a
Profit for the slave ship that sails
No more.
On the stock exchange
Black gold, Lebron James,
Are shiny Black bodies still
In ball and chains
Thanks to a clause in the 13th
Amendment: still are we
Cattle when duly convicted
Of a crime
On course to make a profit
Of course on this slave ship
That don’t sail no more
Called, not Jesus,
But the
Prison Industrial Complex
In the belly of this complex
Beast I’ve set for over 30 years
Longer than the life expectancy
Of my ancestors who thrown
Overboard, on the middle passage,
In the Atlantic Ocean into the
Cold waves, off course
Wasted profit
Of course.
Confused!
By AP
They say racism is dead,
But every day I have a target on my head.
Why, when they define the color black or
Brown, they align it with dirty.
But they connect the color white with pretty.
Tell me how is the younger generation ‘pose
To survive,
When the one who are suppose to protect them
Are taking their lives (police)
Tell me, how can they believe in religion,
When they’re raping, and murdering the same
Women who gave birth to the future children.
Every day they say we aren’t a country to cause
Harm,
Then we literally kidnapping kids from their
Mother’s arms.
How can this be the land of the free, and the
Home of the brave,
When they’re using the prison system as a
Modern day slave trade to get paid
What happen to the Dream of Dr. King,
Of every race coming together and
Connecting like a ring.
The Gift of Flowers
By AC
A seed is planted in the fertile lands inside my mind.
I faintly hear it turning into a beautiful idea
as if, I heard a voice trying to speak to me
through time, through the distance
and through any obstacles that there might be.
But I pay attention to it and nurture it
until it transforms into a thought
with roots spreading fast;
Trunk, branches, leaves,
and then there are flowers, at last.
I cut one of those flowers and offer it
to a kind soul willing to hear what it’s about.
And I know that I can share any of these flowers
as long as none of them is meant to do any harm.
I give you the flowers that only grow inside my mind,
because I have the freedom to express
the things that I can only see with my own eyes.
We have the right to show the world what lies within our hearts;
The right to declare that we are alive;
And the power to show them exactly who we are.
About this poem: to write a speech or poem about what the phrase “freedom of speech” means.
Surrounded/Rodeado
By LV
Surrounded by concrete walls.
Surrounded by an immense feeling of solitude.
Surrounded by concrete walls that don’t distance me from reality.
Surrounded by one-thousand-and-one dreams – that are kept away in prison cells.
Rodeado por paredes de concreto.
Rodeado por un inmenso sentimiento de soledad.
Rodeado por paredes de concreto que no me alejan de la realidad.
Rodeado de uno-y-mil sueños frustrados – que en celdas de prisión están aguardados.
Surrounded by concrete walls.
Surrounded by an immense feeling of solitude; that attacks my thoughts.
Surrounded by concrete walls, surrounded by a strange feeling that starts playing inside my head.
Surrounded by concrete walls, where you only hear the voice of solitude; that sings to my heart to the slow beat of a tormented heart.
We keep on walking through the valley of solitude.
Rodeado por paredes de concreto.
Rodeado de un inmenso sentimiento de soledad; que ataca a mis pensamientos.
Rodeado por paredes de concreto dentro de rodeado por extraño sentimiento que comienza a jugar dentro de mi cabeza. Rodeado de paredes de concreto donde lo único que se escucha es la voz de la soledad; que le canta a mi corazón al ritmo lento de un corazón atormentado. Seguimos caminando por el valle de la soledad.
Surrounded by concrete walls.
Surrounded by one-thousand-and-one problems.
Surrounded by an immense feeling of solitude, that flirts with my heart in the darkness of the night; and it invites to dance to the slow beat of a tormented heart. We keep on traveling the most traveled road.
“The road of forgotten.”
Rodeado por paredes de concreto.
Rodeado de uno y mil problemas.
Rodeado de un inmenso sentimiento de soledad, que le coquetea a mi corazón en la obscuridad de la noche, y lo invita a bailar al ritmo lento de un corazón atormentado.
Seguimos caminando, recorriendo la calle más transitada “la calle del olvido.”
Surrounded by an immense feeling of solitude.
Surrounded by concrete walls, where the voice of solitude is the only thing you hear.
Surrounded by one-thousand-and-one memories of the past.
Surrounded by one-thousand-and-one frustrated dreams — that are trapped in prison cells.
Surrounded by an immense feeling of solitude, that attacks my thoughts.
We keep walking through the valley of solitude.
Rodeado de un inmenso sentimiento de soledad.
Rodeado de paredes de concreto, donde la voz de la soledad es lo único que se escucha.
Rodeado de uno y mil recuerdos del pasado.
Rodeado de uno y mil sueños frustrados que en celdas de prisión están atrapados.
Rodeado de una inmensa soledad, que ataca mis pensamientos.
Seguimos caminando por el valle de la soledad.
Comfort Zone
By GD
I cannot roam outside of my comfort zone
For I’m only comfortable within my skin
See, being lock down in a pen creates a new set of rules when it comes to comfort
For about 20 years now, my comfort zone’s been inside my dome
Only in my mind can I seek to stay in bounds
You know, the realm of true comfort lies in sanity
Anything outside of that is “INSANITY!”
I can only hold on to what’s in my head
Only to realize that I’m holding on by a thread
They try to force me out of my comfort zone
But I can side step with the best of them
As long as I keep my head in the game
I’ll always be ahead in the game
My comfort zone cannot be breached
It is guarded by the strongest of walls
Though I’m trapped behind the tallest of walls
I remain in my zone
And I find solace in my dome
You can create the most uncomfortable circumstances
And I’ll remain standing…in the zone of my comfort
Because my comfort zone is in my dome!
13
By GL
13
The number is
13
Amendment
13
I’m offended by
13
Co-defendant of
13
Convicted by
13
Let me hip you to
13…
Mass incarceration
Across the nation
In 1865
We was granted
Emancipation
Slavery was abolished
According to my
Knowledge
I learned this while in
Prison
They it the
Black man’s
College
The issues that’s at hand
Enslaving the black man
They freed the black man
Then issued their
Back plan
That was
13
Amendment
13
Abolished slavery unless
Convicted
That’s their scheme
Listen…
I know my opposition
No 40 acres
No mule
No home
No pot to piss in
No justice
Just cuff us up
And f*** us
Go in front of the judge
No liberty
It’s
“Just us”
Throw away the key
Then thrown into a cell
We pray
To a white Jesus
To free us
From white hell
13 amendment
I’m
Truly offended
They strategically reinstated
The same s*** that they
ENDED