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.
I Finish Where Jesmyn Ward Left Off
By AG
After Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward
I’ve once read a book and Jesmyn Ward said majority of black kids drop-out
I kind of see what she’s talking about
Going to school and just sit in the back alone to the great knowledge
Your classmates are achievers, most likely end up in college
If school isn’t your concern, well nor should the malice
You are smart, you are capable to achieve what your heart desires
If someone tell you different then they’re liars
Jesmyn said why not find what motivates this kid?
I agree, why not refer the kid to the school counselor?
Instead of tossing them out like a club bouncer
It’s always different strokes for different folks
I know because I was that kid, scared to ask for help
I had no confidence in myself
So I tried to be smart at being cool
I now consider myself the biggest fool
Now I’m older I realize school was my 1-way ticket from being a statistic
Quitting school gets you prison
In most instances
But you do have drop-outs who make gold from mold
But it’s a small chance
But where I stand as a man, I want you kids to believe in yourself
Believe in school and never give up!
Work sometimes can be tough
But your hardest effort is always enough
How I Healed with Help
By SC
My life has changed so much over this last year and a half
I have a machine “ICD” connected to my heart – I’ve entered the weak heart draft
Started out so weak, so, so very ill, so, so sick
I could hear the timer on the bomb connected to my explosive heart tick
Not being able to walk more than 10 steps at a time
Literally standing up too fast would place me really close to dying
And since dying was my rhyming word, I also did a lot of crying
I’ve never been suicidal, but this challenge almost ended me
When I gave up hope because I couldn’t make it, 3 things kept my mind free
Very important people who, through Free Minds, showed me pure love
A very strong passion and belief that my Dear Mom instilled from above
Family and a helluva team of doctors from Mayo Clinic, which in my old mind frame I’d of never began to trust
And also a part of #1, my Free Minds family that showed me while I was down, that standing behind me is an unforgettable must
Most people would think that most healing comes with meds and tools and doctors and stuff
I found that some of the best form of healing is having someone in your corner when times get rough
If my soul don’t heal when my body’s doing just fine
People see me physically on the outside, but on the inside I’m losing my damn mind
I can’t lie, recovery for me was really a kinda battle I had to face
Then when I got control of it kinda, I’m reminded that I’m at this far-away ice-cold snow place
“Minnesota”
So along with my healing came a lot of conditioning as well
My mind and body both are healing up good through my poems, I hope you can tell
Spiritually my life is in a balance that I’m yet to stand completely solid on
Things got very shaky at times and I often feel alone
But I have a reason for healing that’s much better than most
Thanks to all you guys I love ya
I’m just saying, I’m not trying to boast
See, I was broken physically, emotionally, and mentally also
There was some type of pain at every direction I chose to go
I was confused and alone I’d convinced myself that I couldn’t do this
My biggest motivation came from Free Minds letters and family sending me letters saying, “Come on SC, write more, your poems are being missed.”
I want to leave out the therapy of my little friends that came in the forms of squirrels and some awesome little birds
Not to mention the wild geese who run through the prison, not having a care for human affection in their large herds
Never in my life would I have found myself looking around to make sure no one’s watching so I can baby talk the squirrels
Then, after a while, it became therapy that was so precious to me I valued it like a pearl
Because I started to see it was survival for the both of us
Me trying to heal from my heart failure and watching the squirrels hide all its food for winter, which surely was a must
Let me say some thank you’s because I know there are many well overdue
Thank you Free Minds, thank you family, thank you Minnesota nature and Mayo Health Clinic too
There a few more thank you’s that also go out to a selected beautiful few
Don’t even trip if I didn’t call your name and you’re reading this, nine out of ten times it’s also you
I’m blessed, I feel good honestly, I’m doing just fine
I need for you to know I put the best of me, for you, in each of these lines
What helps you heal?
My Free Minds Family
By AW
People encouraging people to
frolic with ideas, to take up
causes with themselves in
grasping the choices they
made to be happy or sad:
Self-determination.
Abyss of self, pulling in an
effort of self-discovery,
people encouraging people to
touch the fullness of their
heart, minds and soul via
reading and writing:
Communication.
My Free Minds Family is
made up of a hodgepodge
group of humanity, touching
and exploring the limitless
possibility of people encouraging
people, with the healing touch of
empathy, love, truth, peace, freedom,
justice and equality:
Served up with a lot of
faith and free form
creativity.
To My Youths
By CL
Don’t let my action be your consequences
Don’t let my lie be your truth
Don’t let my ways be your path
Don’t let my likes be your loves
Don’t let my past be your future
Don’t let my knowledge stop your knowledge from growing
Let my past be your ambition to do better
Because at the end of the day your choices
Will be the outcome of your future which
Is the youths after you
Peace!
Please educate Allah’s children everyday
A Call to Action
By BH
DREAMERS
Running from terror
Chasing freedom
Only to find themselves stuck in cages
Searching for love
But
Met with hatred
Surrounded by foreign faces
Willing to work to pave the way
But
Those in power won’t open the gates
Families divided across the states
Hoping and praying for better days
Will us American people come to their aid
Or
Have our once freed land become
A fascist state?
Feather Me
By AG
Can I fly with you guys
Where I belong, or is it because I’m a crow
I don’t know why I’m perceived as evil
But my physical existence is the same as a seagull
But does color really matter?
I glance at the pretty blue jays
And I’m very amazed how cardinals became an NFL logo on Sundays
Doves are love, and hummingbirds sing soft melodies
And vultures should be charged with multiple felonies
I just want to fly in the sky and rest in a nest
Eat worms when it’s my turn, I’ll never butt in line and be greedy
I’m considerate of the needy
I thank the humans for throwing me bread
I observe like an owl, and listen to what was said
I’m a bird, just a different color
So don’t judge black birds as evil and dirty
But learn us so the world will think we’re worthy
Dead Men on the Radio
By MH
~~In tribute to some of my favorite musicians. RIP. ~~
I heard a dead man on the radio
He was singing about his life
He said he was talking to the Man in the Mirror
He told me it didn’t matter if you’re black or white
I heard a dead man on the radio
He was singing memories of his father from way back when
It was a sad song
He just wanted for his momma to have one more dance with his father again
I heard a dead man on the radio
He sang of champions, his friends, and Killer Queens
I liked when he spoke of dynamite and laser beams
He was a really great entertainer by all means
I heard a dead man on the radio
He spoke of Space Cowboys and Jungle Love
He wanted to Fly Like an Eagle
I imagine he is now flying high in the sky above
I heard a dead man on the radio
He claimed to be free like a bird
He asked me to be a Simple Man
I hung onto every word
Stanza 1: Michael Jackson
Stanza 2: Luther Vandross
Stanza 3: Freddie Mercury (Queen)
Stanza 4: Steve Miller Band
Stanza 5: Lynyrd Skynyrd
The Unknown Words of Solitude
By AP
They say I should be used to living in a cage
Because all my life I have been trapped in pain
But if they only knew solitude educated me and kept me from going insane
It’s true that I am a product of my community
And I continue to pray that one day society would stop judging me
And give me equal opportunity
The color of my skin doesn’t speak of who I am
So your insults don’t affect me mentally because I am well educated, talented
And proud of who I am
America can be so cruel and mean
But that has never stopped me from believing in my American dream
Hard times in the ghetto raised me to be mentally and emotionally strong
So when they tell me I will never be nothing after prison
It only motivates me to prove them wrong
I know that life after prison can be a success
Especially if I continue to be determined to succeed and have faith in myself
Endurance
By GL
In
The memory of
Distant memories that burns the chest
Like sips of Hennessey
No chaser
Chased by smug-faced oppressors
Whose job it is to arrest us
Oppress us
For being what we was seeing
At a younger age
Observation of our surroundings
Was the first stage
To the life we chose
The concrete gave birth to a rose
And it bloomed for the world to see
Nurtured by the tears of Angels and Gods
I AM HE
From State to State
By SHA
Since a teenager I moved from state to state
Experiencing different lifestyles and cultures I never knew existed
Even though I was incarcerated it was a journey
That made me grow and become wiser than I was before
Never knowing who you will meet or who you will befriend wherever you land
For me it was a journey of life-altering changes
And ending my purpose in life with faith and commitment to what I’ve become today
The younger me was stuck in one place under one condition
Thinking it wouldn’t change just living for the moment
So, to say the least, this journey has not been bitter sweet
But one to continue to grow with and see what lies ahead
Peace
Stranger
By AG
Would you mind if I stood next to you – a stranger on the street?
Even though my life so far has not been nice and neat?
Society says I’m less than you
Because I have a past
And treats me like the dark and evil villain of the past
Would you mind I sat next to you – a stranger on a bus?
Could you look past the differences that frame the both of us?
Though scars and tats may seem to make me less upright than you
To judge me from my cover is an
Unfair point of view
Would you mind if I lived next to you – a stranger in your town?
When you find out about my felony, will you let me live it down?
Your neighbors turn their eyes away
As if it wasn’t clear
That because of my past mistake
They don’t want me here
Would you mind if I worked next to you – a stranger earning his way?
This job is all I’ve found so far to
Make some decent pay
They shut me down in interviews
As if I wasn’t fit
To do much more than mow a lawn or shovel piles of s**t
Would you mind if I joined you as part of your society?
An ex-con forced outside it with this stigma forced on me?
I’ve done my time
I’ve paid my dues
There’s no inherent danger
In treating me like one of you and not me
A stranger
Book Club
By CL
Thank you all for inviting me to a vast new world
Where one is limited only by a lack of imagination
A place where countless adventures unfurl
On a voyage to uncharted destinations
Kelli’s biweekly sessions of meditation
Followed by games to relieve our stress
Keela’s unwavering dedication
Encouraging us all to do our best
So amazing how a simple chapter in a book
Can give birth to complicated meetings of the mind
It’s a blessing in disguise depending on where you look
The cherished camaraderie you inevitably find
Brought together by words unread
Bonded by stories of similar fate
Reliving these memories in my head
Of moments I truly appreciate
Dedicated to Kelli Taylor, Keela Hailes, and the entire Free Minds Book Club Family