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.
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
To Be My Heart and Soul
By EH
Dedicated to my heart and soul, Mersedez
My daughter Mersedez is my heart and soul
because when she’s sad, I’m sad
When she’s mad, I’m mad
When she’s sick, I’m sicker
When she’s thinking about me,
I feel it when she has something on her mind to tell me
I can feel it and when she gets hurt, I feel it
When she was four years old,
She fell and busted her chin open and had to get stitches
And guess who has the scar now, I do
Now that’s what I call my heart and soul and I love her with all my heart
39021-007
By LC
39021-007
That is my number till I pass away to heaven
It belongs to me
the thirty-nine thousand twenty-first man
to be sentenced and sent away from D.C.
Never mind my name
I now go by that number
Lost in a dreamless federal slumber
And even when I wake
and walk back through those penitentiary gates
that number will remain
never to be given to another man again
It belongs to me
and as long as I wear it I’ll never be free
Peaceful Protest
By AL
“The home of the brave,
and the land of the free”
are notably beautiful
words written by Francis
Scott Key.
Yet. in 1814 those words
didn’t apply to individuals
with the same skin color as
me.
So for all the injustice then
and now that I see,
I proudly place my fist in
the air while taking a
knee.
I stand in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick.
Love’s Reply
By MS aka NexXLife
Dear NexXLife,
I thought I gave you to someone who
would love you
I’m not all knowing
so I never knew
that your mother’s love
if that’s
what it was
would tarnish your innocence and corrupt you
reshape your world view
break your spirit and harden your heart
she battered your form and imprisoned your mind
that’s not what love is
not what love does
now because of this
all of those years of silent tears
huddled within yourself like a refugee
your fear was your impenetrable guard
so it was hard for anyone to get close to love you
protecting yourself you pushed people away
ashamed of your past
you were too scared to let someone love you
I hear you
I am never far from you
all you have to do is lower your guard
take a chance on me
light a beacon
and love (I) will surely find you
Yours truly,
Sincerely,
Love
Sermon of the Slave
By KC
I refuse to be grounded
By the clock pounded
Instead I will fly as one with time
To be a legend and never die
I am self, the undeniable truth
Even though the masses deny my worth—
by denying my freedoms
I am self-bonded by Blood, Iron and Pain
Transported over seas and through time
A lifetime of hate created by ignorance from others—
and self-destruction within
But still I fight—still I rise
And one day I will be free
B-2930…269-265
By CL
Time is often the destroyer of a young man’s dreams.
Hope is frequently the only nourishment for an emaciated soul.
How did you endure an era so blatantly inhumane,
Where a child’s only crime is being born a Jew?
I think back to my own hardship as a “Lifer” in prison.
When dark thoughts ravenously clawed at my will.
Threatening to drag me into the depths of hopeless abandon,
As the elusive hope of freedom took on a mystical quality.
A Lucky Child spoke to me in ways never before.
Tears of mine followed your march on frostbitten feet.
Injecting into my spirit an Odd Nansen state of being,
I pray for the moral strength not to compromise my dignity.
You have shown that when a person is subjected to terrible suffering,
That experience should teach us how to empathize with all people in need.
With Mutti’s unrelenting hope and love, Mundek’s courageous sacrifice …
You reclaimed your name from the number you were given.
Dedicated to:
Mr. Thomas Buergenthal
Survivor of Auschwitz death camp,
And author of A Lucky Child
Down
By AME
I wrote one poem but you dissolved it,
So I wrote a new one in the hopes to solve it,
Right now I’m angry and am in need of help – are you there?
I’m tired of being lied to – honestly do you really care?
I got my hopes up but now you just laugh – can you tell me why?
I hate to believe that you’re praying upon my downfall – is that why you cry?
All your tears I hate as well – when you look at me, honestly, can’t you tell?
Now it’s clear to see in my pain that you’re a hazard of – why I fail.
With that being expressed, I’ll close for now……
Just maybe – you will learn the meaning of truly – being DOWN!
Instead of living your life as a silly clown.
You always want to be seen – but I promise, “All is not what it seems.”
When you find yourself and become ready for a good man,
I vow to your will that I can – always be DOWN!
I Really Don’t Know
By D’Nell
I come from a long line of soldiers
We are as tough as a rope
I grew up in Stanton Oaks
They call me D’Nell
Because I’m real like steel
When I come around
It’s like I never left
My voice sounds like smooth jazz
It’s as mellow as a Sunday
My eyes are as brown as dirt
Right now my life is like hell
My future is as real as it can get
Emancipating Thoughts
By AL
I’ve meditated on a cloud,
the scent of Summer Rain.
I’ve astro-planed to a time
when pharaohs reign.
And people sang
on the Nile waters.
A place where Woman
was praised in High Orders.
And the gods were
the topic of the day.
A place where esoteric
knowledge was on display.
And man thought in depths
of the Milky Way.
I’ve watched winters
melt into springs.
And springs blossom
into summers.
I’ve witnessed the Nirvana
of life.
In every stage of its wonders.