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.
Click on the poem title to open it up, and then post your comments, feedback, and encouragement in the space below the poem.
Potential
By AG
My potential is to be successful
To be a better father
To not be bothered what other people say about me
To always keep my mind free
Free of insecurities
Free to spread my wings
Free to sing
My potential is to be free
To be the Real Me
To work for a successful company
To pay bills to make ends meet
My potential is beyond what I now see
Prison cells and white concrete
To make it back to the streets
My potential is to be a normal American
To open doors to inner city kids
Suffering from poverty
That’s my potential
To Those
By AC
To those who find peace in times of war;
Who find love within their hearts
even in times when it may feel
like there is nothing more than hatred in this world;
Who find wisdom among blinding confusion;
Who find the True Value of this life
before finding the value of a coin;
To those who smile when they should be crying;
Who look up when they are down;
Who find gain when everything’s been lost;
For those who feel the joy bubbling inside
and forget about the pain that haunts us every night;
For you, don’t you ever even try to give up,
keep moving forward and never look back,
because when the true heroes of humanity are counted,
you my friend, you are one.
About this poem: There is good in all of us. Some of us just have to dig a little deeper for it. But everyone is capable of being and doing good, no capes or tight pants needed.
I Am
By BB
I am because I am alive
I am because I have suffered and still survive
I am because I see the light
I am because I am one with mankind’s plight
I am because I feel
I am because I hurt and I heal
I am because I exist
I am because I stand up to oppression and resist
I am because I am a human being
One who felt and seen many a thing
I am because I am here
I am because I love and I care
I am because I make mistakes
To become better I am doing whatever it takes
I am because I am not perfect in my doing
Many failures have resulted in the goals that I am pursuing
I am because I keep on trying
I am now but one day I will be dying
I am because I came and went
I am because when I left the earth I left my footprint
I Sing
By DJ
There is no air under my wings
But I sing to the sky
Praying 5 times
And I never ask god why
I had friends and family
But time ended
There is no air under my wings
But I sing
I sing
I give a ring to a woman who was in need of a king
To me she was like a beautiful thing
Time ended it
And yet I sing
I sing
Untitled
By TG
Why must I fade away
Why must I rest today
Why must there be a price to pay
Why must I kneel to pray
I find my justice on the street
From your wallets come my meat
Abandoned buildings where I sleep
Paper boxes give me heat
Do you see me with your eyes
Even though you pass me by
Humiliation tries to hide
Embarrass figures of our lives
When you see me you will speak
When I ask for change to eat
A lonely figure in cold
Outcast member from the fold
Hold my shame out with my hand
Fractured woman broken man
Me and Jim Crow
By PJ
Twenty years in ADX.*
I’m asked, a lot, one question:
How long have you been here?
First, let me tell you something I know:
(Feared, is the unknown;) it is the confined person’s ghost.
When I was told: “the short trip,”
I couldn’t wait to get with “it”;
to act a fool.
For two decades, really, I haven’t moved.
It seems: I’m going in circles, but before
you jump to conclusions, understand: basically,
we all (are going in circles). Some big,
some smaller than others; we live by: clocks.
The earth revolves around the sun; I crossed a lot.
Administrative Maximum is a microcosm of society.
All the problems, symptoms, epidemics in our cities
are gathered here (again), interacting.
What wasn’t solved there,
resurfaces here.
It’s an environment where: you’re constantly
fighting insanity.
That, accompanied with: maintaining your safety
and trying to stay alert.
As an African American today,
in the Criminal Justice System, ADX,
has been a way to search: myself.
As many things here, the inside becomes: meshed,
in adaptation with outside forces.
(Weakening, or strengthening, building, or destroying.)
Sometimes what we consider: a curse,
can be: a road (a beginning), a door; our cure.
In the Era of Mass Incarceration,
as an African American,
I feel: very much, like a commodity;
as I come to the realization: (monetarily),
others have “set-up,” (taken liberty),
to map-out what they feel is: my destiny.
(A rightful place) as they gain. From a
long ago, enacted (scheme) to hamper the slave.
As with The United States Penitentiary, ADX, now I know:
(That scheme) has become known
as: Justice, Criminalization, Incarceration, The New Jim Crow.
*ADX refers to a maximum security federal prison. Everyone incarcerated there is held in solitary confinement.
My Life Line
By VL
Dedicated to my beautiful niece Ana
It’s an honor to be your uncle
And a blessing to receive your love through your drawings,
Whenever I need some joy in my life
It’s you that I always think of.
Spiritually, you’re always in my prayers
Emotionally, you’re the blood that pumps my heart,
Mentally, you’re constantly in my thoughts
And physically, is the only way we’re apart.
Since the day my sister Nina had you
I’ve loved you like no other,
Well, one other person loves you as I do
And that would be your mother.
It’s always delightful to receive a picture, or drawing
From you and I think I know it will be astonishing when I
See your pretty face close up, I love when your mom
Sends me pictures of you, and from the look of things
In your pictures, you’re growing up quick ☺
You’re the most precious person in my life and I’m
Proud of all that you do,
You bring infinite joy to my days and nights in
Prison, especially when you say to me “I love you.”
Jim Crow
By JS
A Nation divided by frustration.
From racism, slipknots in a noose
Resulting in Asphyxiation.
Just from looking…at a woman that’s Caucasian.
I now know that liberty for all is a fraud,
And the symmetry dividing a friend and enemy
Is the line between the grave of a slave
And a “white” man’s ideology.
Like biology, I learned to dissect through
The flesh of a frog’s false reality,
That it can live in freedom
In protection of nature.
But like me
(Emmett Till)
He’s captured
For a tortuous experiment
Caused by hatred.
It’s like my soul feels
The vibrations
Of a tortured slave’s scream,
Begging for liberation.
Losing patience….
So I’m pacing….
In my cell praying
To God for blessings.
But my fundamental nature
is God’s essence.
So everyday I wake up
I’m in God’s presence.
This is God’s lesson.
If John 10:34 is true
Then I’m a vessel
For the miracle of God’s message.
Protecting My Energy…
By GL
I’ve made peace out of chaos,
by taking a piece out of chaos…
for chaos is but an imbalance to the natural disorder
of the universe.
So, I trained my mind to freeze the earth
So I can take the MC out of square…
Once you take Mass and Matter out of the equation
You’ve created a space, where negative energy dissipate
Where it used to be “Air”…
Riddle ME.
I am, who I tend to be
My vision is what many pretend to see
I have the ability to create my own destiny
The sign and symbols resting next to me.
…and believe it or not.
Adversity is the main verb, that’s protecting me.
Dream
By JJ
A dream is like hope
When you dream you hope it comes true
When it is denied you be happy still
because you saw it in your dream.
When your dream comes true you feel so happy
you hope all your good dreams come true.
Yes there are some bad dreams, those dreams you wish
it do not come true and you want to get out of
that dream.
A dream is like hope
You hope it comes true or you hope it don’t come true.
The Start of a New End
By TC
Age one, living life as a toddler lucky enough to have a father and mother
Age two, growing up getting everything I want
Age three, feels like I’m getting taller by the month
Age four, traveling with my family having fun
Age five, I hopped off the porch, started going outside
Age six, it became a habit, hangin’ around older guys
Age seven, God took my grandfather up to heaven
Age nine, got exposed into the street life kinda
Age ten, started observing everything happening on the block
Age eleven, I was eager to get out of school, watching the clock
Age twelve, I watched Apple take his last breath
Why he gone?
Age thirteen, got locked up and I caught my first charge…
Something You Should Know
By LB
You should know that I was an orphan
Who never knew my biological parents
You should know I was left on the seat of a diner
In a town I never heard of
Bounced from different children’s shelters
Until the age of 7
You should know the only mother I ever known or will ever need
Took me into her home and raised me as her own
She always kept food in my belly
And clothes on my back
I miss her dearly
I pray to God that she bring her back