Why don't we start, you know, just with a little bit of of an introduction. The topic for today is working with incarcerated populations, co-creating theater with them. I'll read the description of the session because it gives us guys an opportunity to share collective experiences and also open it up for some of you guys that may have some of the same experiences to share with the room. We'll explore and discuss the effects of the program as on the populations and prisons. It'll promote a, you want to just have a collaborative learning experience here. So if anyone at any point wants to share out some of the stuff that they've done, that would be great. My name is Freda Bradley Ballantyne. I'm from the old little theater. I'm the Director of Arts Engagement and I'd like to just introduce this man. Can you tell us your name? Yeah, who are you from? Yeah, I'm Johnny Stallings. I live in Portland. I have a non-profit organization called Open Parts, Open Minds. We have programs in three prisons in Oregon. I've directed six Shakespeare plays at Two Rivers Correctional and one of my star actors is to my left, Alan Mills. He introduced me. I'm Alan Mills. And I think I performed in five of those plays for being transferred out and here I sit on the old home of you. You played Puck in Midsummer Night's Dream and Festi in 12th Night. And in our first production, which was Hamlet, we had four Hamlets. He was one of our Hamlets and he also played Laertes. Mara? Good morning. I'm Mara Sidmore. I'm with Actors Shakespeare Project in Boston and I'm the Director of Education Programs, Projects and Partnerships. And we work with the juvenile justice system in the state of Massachusetts and we work all across the state, mostly on Lisa, but all across the state with youth who work across the state. I'm Scott Jackson. I'm the Executive Director of Shakespeare Notre Dame and I've had a program going at Westville Correctional Center, which is indeed in his largest state prison for about four years now. We're also the home of the Shakespeare Prison's network. And with this guy here, we staged the first two Shakespeare Prison's conferences in November 2013 and January 2016. Looking forward to the third, we'll talk about it. I'm Kurt Toffen, I'm the Founder of Shakespeare Behind Bars. I've been working in the correction system for 22 years. We have programs in Kentucky and also programs in Michigan. Great. I'd like to take this time to ask a question out here to the audience. How have you all been working with incarcerated populations? How did it become a priority in your organization or practice? So if it isn't a priority within your organization and practice, what's preventing it from being a priority? Now, if you guys could just partner up, preferably if you're in the same organization, you could split up and not talk to each other. Can you discuss that one yourself for a quick second? So I'd just like to call on a couple of people and ask what was talked about. What did you guys talk about? Do you have a program? Well, Brian is currently working with a loose situation really with the juvenile justice system in Cincinnati, but is interested in starting a program with adults in perhaps with the vision of saying how could they come together and have communication through the art form. So he's interested in the business model and is this a sample and does it work and how do you fund it just to know if it's something that I'm going to get into. Can I get that right? That's great. How about you guys? What is it a priority within your organization? Are you guys trying to find a way to make it happen? No, no, for Williamson University of U.S. School, I think it's such a nice place to happen on the season and not on the top end. We have not had any passing that's sort of been considered. It's something that interests me the most in communicating with the public. It's something that interests me personally as a director. What about in the back, you guys? These are teens from Berkeley Rep School Theater, which I happened to have started back in 2000. I'm now with Technotic Theater Project. We don't work in prisons, but it was part of my job interview process to say that I want to make it a priority in all my previous positions. I've worked with juvenile incarcerated youth, but I do playwriting programs. So I go in and I teach playwriting residencies and then bring in professional actors to do readings for the prison population. What about in the back for a year? I'm an actor who helped pilot a program with Delaware Shakespeare Festival last year. So we were in touch with you guys, and we really looked at the 10,000 Things model and David Strathley, our artistic director, was an amazing, generous, patient man because I think leading up to the actual program did a year's worth of community engagement work personally with the different leaders in the Delaware area and with the different demographics that we were looking at and actually took a long time to actually create the program and really invested in actors that really cared about the mission. So we're doing it again this year. So it was a great time for everyone and now I'm here to try to learn about how to build an even more. I just wanted to start it off. I guess I'm going to start off with you, Alan, and just to talk a little bit about your experience with this program and the programming of work. How, and just if you could tease out how it's affected you a little bit, how the programming, how you've been affected by it? Well, I joined Johnny's group in, I think, 2007 or 2008, and before that my career was on a very different trajectory. And I was actually at kind of a turning point where I was looking for something else. I was looking for something new. I was in kind of a rut of hanging out with bad people, people that weren't good for me and trying to impress them for the wrong reasons. And I found Johnny's group and that was interesting to me. It started out as a dialogue group and then it led into the plays and stuff. But I found that throughout that, the stimulation of performing and rehearsing and stuff it affected other areas of my life. I draw, you know, visual artists. I drew a lot of portraits and wild life scenes. And I noticed that when I was rehearsing and performing that creativity led into other areas of my life, into the visual arts. And I felt more inspired. I think that the juvenile, I know there's a couple people mentioned the juvenile stuff working with them. I was incarcerated as a juvenile as well. So I had been going kind of along a poor path. So I think outreach to the juvenile crowd, getting them before they go into big boy prison is really important. But I think there's a certain level of maturity that people have to get to. For me it had to be a turning point. I had to find, I had to realize in my life that something wasn't right and I had to look for something else. And for most, and for some people, for a lot of people that's kind of what it is.  And this kind of, this R2 prison thing kind of helped jumpstart that. So from then on I stopped hanging out with the old crowd. I cut sides with all of them. I started hanging out with more, the people that were in the, developed a camaraderie with the people that were in our group. A type of collaboration that doesn't exist anywhere else in the prison. And I think that really, it's really beneficial for anybody, anybody incarcerated who's part of that program. So the results kind of speak to themselves when we look at the individuals who are graduating from those programs. And then getting out and being your next door neighbors. I think more prison outreach should be done by the states and stuff because that's what it comes down to. Who do you want living next door to you? The guy who's been in there on bread and water sleeping on a concrete pad. Or the guy who showed a little bit of compassion and was allowed to develop some empathy and relationships with other people in a positive way. Thanks. Johnny, I just want to be, I talked about what success, you know, looked like. How do you measure it? You pushed back on that. Can you talk a little bit about that? Well, yeah, just when we came up here this morning, either free success came up, and I know that when you're applying for grants, maybe some of you have, many of you have applied for grants. One of the things they want to see is evidence-based, you know, they want you to prove statistically that what you're doing is working. And what I feel, I guess I have to say that my philosophy of directing is very simple. Love the heck out of it. And that has applications even outside of theater. And like from the very beginning, before we even started doing theater, like if you get together in a room with people and something beautiful, so that we're all hoping for that this morning. That's success. You can't, because you learn over time, you can't magically change everybody's whole life trajectory instantly by putting on a play. But you can love somebody, and that's perfect. Goes deep, can't be erased, and is very successful. Mark, can you talk a little bit about what you've been doing, what's been done so far? Sure. So we partner with the Department of Youth Services. It's different, I think, the juvenile justice system work. It's very different from work with adult presidents, and I've noticed that said various conferences. The work tends to be harder because the population is changing so quickly. So as an adult, when you're committed, you're typically given a sentence, and you serve that sentence for a length of time in one location. For young people, they are, first of all, assessed.  And there are things happening from day to literally day to day. So as teaching artists, we have to be extremely flexible and have no attachment to outcome whatsoever. Because we may start with a group of ten young people in a facility, and the very next day, we might have two. And the very next day, we might have five. And we have to really attest our skill to be really in the moment and able to see what the rule needs at any moment in any given time. I think that we're fortunate in terms of business model, because this wasn't always the case, but we've been doing this work long enough for about a decade now. But originally, we just literally knocked on a door and said, hey, we want to work inside, can we? And talk to staff and teachers who were in facilities teaching, because young people go to school while they're in prison, of course. So that was sort of like, can we come in? And people were generally like, sure, you know, and most of the time. And so we began working inside without any restrictions. The lovely thing is that now the Department of Youth Services works with a subcontractor that's an education company called the Commonwealth Corporation in Massachusetts. And they actually have an arts program coordinator position that serves the state and partners with us and many other youth arts organizations to actually set up their residencies and then help us troubleshoot as we go along. So that's a really wonderful thing. At the same time, as you might imagine, because we're working in a system, a system that involves a lot of hierarchy and structure and things taking a very long time, there's a lot of red tape that we run into. And so our biggest challenge as well as blessing is that relationship with DYS and Comcor, the subcontractor, and maintaining that relationship all the time. And it's kind of like, in a way, they're part of our theater family and that sometimes we got to do good at with them and sometimes we got to be patient with one another and they're kind of part of our family. In terms of what's happening inside, we actually have a, we call it a mash-up approach. So we use Shakespeare as a launching pad. We usually do pick a play. We take the themes of that play and then we do a series of exercises depending on what the young people need. We could involve improv exercises around the themes of the play. It could involve writing, a lot of writing. We like them to generate text, so it's a co-created, devised piece together that we make around a particular play of Shakespeare. We're starting to dabble a little bit in other areas. So for instance, right now, we see in a girl's facility where we're actually in a history class for the first time and so the teaching artist is doing a lot of work on post-modern feminism and sort of historical women's rights and taking that as a launching pad. And I don't know what she's going to be even text-wise or not, but she'll create a new series out of it. Have you thought about doing that? That sounds really interesting.  Because so many women that are incarcerated have been victims of domestic violence. Have you thought about doing any kind of feminism class for the male juveniles? That's a really great question. I don't know what their curriculum is currently. We're somewhat dependent on the teaching staff themselves and what the relationship is there because they do dictate the curriculum as does in some ways the state. But I love that idea. I will say that we also have a unique program in that we're inside but we also recruit those young people so that when they are, I think you hit on this a little bit, when they're released back into the community we actually can pay them to come and take our programs and learn the skills of theater artists as a job. So we're hiring them to come and work for us. And they do our programs alongside all the other young people that we recruit from the city of Boston and the surrounds. And our goal there is to do what you're saying. So we do anti-oppression work with the young people. We actually train them in thinking through that lens. And when I say anti-oppression, that includes everything. So we're not just talking about anti-racism. We're not just talking about being aware of feminism. We're talking about any level of oppression and awakening them to understanding the systems of oppression that exist in our society so that we can have those conversations about what is it like. And many of our young people have been in very different situations and in being able to dialogue with each other. And one of our former incarcerated young people has said this very recently to us, because I could talk to the girls in the room who were in rehearsal together, my mind was open to what they have been through and how I now can be as a young man to support a change in culture. I want to go to Scott because we haven't heard from you. How do you get buy-in within your, you're at a big, you know, super big organization. How did you get buy-in within and how do you continue to get buy-in within an organization like Notre Dame? Sure, so in the beginning it was really tough. I think that anyone who's aspiring at any level to do this work, there's a certain personal investment that is unexpected, I think, when you find just how consistent you have to be in this work. This isn't something where you can just fly in and fly back out. You've got to commit for years, not months, not weeks, not days. So once you make that personal investment to yourself and once you start at the ground foundational level to build a program up, you're going to need partners, right? You're going to need external partners. So being part of this larger machine, as we were just saying with Notre Dame, a lot of my work kind of gets lost in translation because it's not pertinent to research, to someone's pet products. However, Notre Dame being Catholic University is committed to social justice. And so when I bypass actually the provost lines and the faculty of Notre Dame, and I go straight to the president's office and find where the main mission is housed and actually served at the university, it's protected from the very top of the food chain at the university. And so all the support filters down from that acknowledgement at the very top. And then from that, I make sure that I'm holding true. And I'm not a Catholic, but the dogma of Catholic social tradition and teaching and serving the common good and starting with the least of us first. And these things all translate perfectly to the work that I'm performing. And so from that, for four years now, what was kind of a... Oh, we're livestreaming, aren't we? It was kind of a contentious project with certain people who were in authority for me has become something that those people are actually... It's their case example, the example of Notre Dame's mission and action to the performing arts. So seeing a total reversal of that. It's a unique situation because I am part of a larger institution, but I think that the lessons learned can be applied to any theater organization as well. Once folks are exposed to the work, once folks directly engage with the work, because if you come to my program and I think Kurt feels the same way, you're participating in the program. The observation is kind of not... That's not part of this gig. You have to come in with an authentic sense of self and there's something that happens in that sharing that people walk away and they're going to be your advocates for life after they experience that. Well, Kurt, what's getting results? What's working for you out there? Human beings need to try it. Less mental illness is a part of the situation when you're the Unabomber living in the mountains on Tana. So you have to factor in that by and large human beings need to try it. So I play on that because I'm creating a try. Human beings in order to change, to transform, I apply all human beings, not just incarcerated human beings, and I apply it uniquely to myself because I'm not there to fix anybody. I'm there to fix me. I don't have any advice. So the moment that someone presents a situation and someone says, well, I can solve that problem. No, you can't. You're going to give them advice. No advice here, please, because we're here to fix us. So reflection is essential. You have to understand where you came from. You have to understand all the circumstances around where you came from. You have to be able to really dig into that and in particular cases with incarcerated population, there's so much trauma that's involved in that. But you cannot fix the trauma in yourself until you have language to speak to. It's the only way it heals. You can give it medication, just therapy, give them the capacity to go back and look at the horrors from whence they came to be able to understand that they're simply a mirror of where they came from. So they're totally innocent. They are just reflecting where they came from authentically. They're doing it authentically. So when transformation happens, when you realize there's something different and there's another possibility, another place to be, another human being to be, you have to go back and you have to reflect. Theater naturally does that because the acting techniques are all there. You have to fill in all the blanks. Either you find yourself in the character, in the biography of the character. When you can't find yourself in the biography, you use your dramatic imagination. That's how you get there. Using theater and acting is essential because when you help them with the tools to reflect upon the character that they're playing, you don't have to say anything about, well, why don't you use those tools on yourself? It just happens. It's a mirror. The last thing that you need is story. We are narrative creatures. It goes back to the trauma until you can speak your language to your trauma in order to share your story. Healing can't happen. And the beautiful thing that happens in the circle is as I'm telling my story, only two things happen. One, I go, you too. Or I go, I don't have your experience. I'm a rural agrarian farm kid. I wasn't grown up in the city. I didn't have violence in my home. Your story breaks my heart. We have empathy. So that's applied in every aspect, working with the prisoners, attempting to work with the prison administration, attempting to work with funders, board members. It's the same technique. I don't apply any different technique when I'm directing professionally. In fact, the work that I've done in prisons has informed me as an artist. It has informed me as a director, as an actor. It has informed me most importantly as a human being. So it's about that authenticity. And being authentic with whoever you're with, that's what moves me. I'm no different now with you than I am in any other situation, by the way, with my family. I'm no different. I'm here. My heart is open. I'm not judging. I'm just here to try to make me better. I just wanted to take, you know, go on out here. Does anybody have any questions for any of the panelists that they've heard or anything that they said or any questions in general that we'd like to go ahead? Thank you all so much for being here today. I've got some personal experience, volunteering in the Dallas County Jail, a program called Resilana. And we work with women who are incarcerated there. We offer programs that are everything from acting in theater to visual art to, you know, a variety of things, culture and making art. And one of our success stories had to do with working with the administration. And there's a really big difference between working in a county jail and working in a state prison, right? And there's a really big difference in having someone who is an officer who's in charge of the particular pod and who understands. So I'd like to hear some of your worst horror stories and your best success stories in terms of the logistics of working with the people that you're working with. And some advice about everything from, you know, when you're working in a county jail and people are being admitted and they're being released all hours of the day and night. And in our case, working with women, it would be forever threatening, when I can imagine it was difficult to be able to kind of show up. And so, everything from that to having the judges appreciate and understand the work so that the judges can advocate for that work as part of a plan to accelerate someone's release or to help them kind of participate in their entry. So I would just like to hear some of those kind of practical, you know, stories that you have about working with the administration and working with the logistics so that works. Wow, yeah. I mean, I've had good and bad, definitely. I think that working with prison administrations about 55% of the case it feels like because it's so inconsistent it feels like the classes and everything else the offerings are the most consistent. I remember in particular, so one of the groups that's part of Shakespeare Notre Dame is called Actors from the Lemon Stage and it's a five person British troop that generally tours to universities all over the country. All universities. Down right below you. Oh, nice, nice. And so I've started a template where they premiere each show at my prison, at Westville Correctional Center. And I have buy-in at the very top with the warden, the superintendent of the prison but it comes down a lot of times to the shift captain. And so you'll be coming in and you're bringing a show in and you're bringing units together which rarely have ever happened and then suddenly there's no count letter and we're talking about what count letter you know and then we're sitting there for two hours waiting for them to sort it out and then you end up getting to do a 30 minute abridged version of the plagues they got to be back for chow or for count or whatever you know. So there are those things internally those hiccups that happen all the time but at the same time I was able last year, about this time last year I had a reporter from the South Bend Tribune and a videographer that were like you really want to do a piece about your program and I told them like if you're coming you're in the class I don't want you just sitting off the side taking notes or whatever. So they came to my class for like three months and then wrote this beautiful beautiful piece with like a seven minute video like months later it took them about three months to put all this stuff together that came out and the doors that opened to me at that prison just because I got in good press and there just been a huge expose about the private healthcare provider at the prison and people that were dying you know people that were almost dying from an abscess too because they weren't getting the right healthcare so here's this story that completely changed the community's perception about what the prison was doing and that really I have no problem I just walk in and out now and people the administrative side they celebrate the fact that I'm there because I come in with an authentic heart you know no agenda I understand that if anything has to shift in a day it's going to be me and I just get up against the wall and say you know go do what you gotta do and that adaptability I think buys me a lot of goodwill I have a quick question for Alan in the five years or so that you were involved in our program did you notice any change in the overall culture of the prison with the other inmates or the officers? I think more with because my social group altered so I noticed that more but I think some of the recognition from some of the prison officials that started to see that the program was making positive changes in certain people especially me and so a quick story regarding that Captain Pedro is a captain that had recently approved me to go back into the prison to see a recent production out there and I knew him 15 years ago when I was a little jerk one in the hole and calling him names and we had gone back and forth for years and I think the transformation he saw in me over that time period kind of altered his perception of me and some other people that I know were also had were also going down a poor path they got involved in this program and then they kind of started shifting their life around and the officials seeing that I think they give more leeway to the program I know this our first production we didn't have a lot of props or clothing or anything like that I think we had some doublets and then we had our prison jeans and whatever else on and by the next time I think there's a change in administration we didn't get to do a play the next year but the following year we got to do one and there was just I mean we got full full attire a lot more props were approved and then as the program continued what we're seeing now is they're now making props in the stage stuff in the prison for the productions and they're allowing more stuff in there so you can certainly see the shift in the administrations and in the guards perception of the program and what it's doing what was it what was it like moving from one social set into another social set and not doing the things that you were doing before was there any resistance met with that how did you have the strength to make that well I was switching from I hang out with a lot of the gangs there and I think when I started pulling away from them they started feeling a sense of like I betrayed them or something which is common in the gang when the guy's getting out of that lifestyle all his buddies were you going we've been here we break bread together we hang out together and then now you're leaving and that betrayal translates in a lot of times in violence or negativity because that's what they know that's the lifestyle so the trash talk and the mudsling where oh that guy's horrible he's a bad guy whatever and I just had to keep pulling away from it and it was it was difficult because it sometimes brought violence to me from that from that quarter and but I knew I still knew I had to had to trudge on and get away from that because that's all I was ever going to see if not so the transition was shaky for me because of what I had mired myself in before but getting once that transition was made and years pass and people forget things and people get moved around and things change they forget and then it's fine how long did that process take? about almost two years two years it was about a the last time that they brought any kind of violence to me was about a year after I started pulling away from them and then over that period there was just some people talking smack and talking trash behind my back and stuff and they wouldn't say anything in my face anymore and then it just stopped altogether so yes well I'm actually responding to something before the question that was in here and it was about how the prison and it's for everyone as well so I just finished doing a show that was written by two and now it's actually starting to move to be outside as well but we found that at the same time that the administration at times were happy about what was happening how the Jews were being made there were people in the prison who were necessarily happy about guards who in fact one of the women who wrote one of the pieces while we were rehearsing found ourselves in solitary for about three weeks the empowering that doing this is giving some of the women who are participating in it empowers them maybe to be a little bit more vocal a little bit different than they've been in fact there were some backlash and I was just wondering if anybody else has experienced that and how to navigate that so I don't get them in trouble is that actually right the whole idea of doing Shakespeare plays in prison is really I mean mid-summer night stream you know that's not really prison culture that's not for the inmates for the guards it's not it's way outside of their idea of what the place that they are so so naturally a lot of people are going to have difficulty with this thing that is so un-prison like but everybody has inside them something that wants is that where again the officers all the people who are serving all those guys who are left back behind in the gang they're waiting for their invitation to come along someday I think I know exactly what you're saying I don't think it's a bad thing she spent three weeks in solitary I don't think that's a bad thing it's a sling and an error that we all must bear and her ability then to reflect on why she spent three weeks in solitary is where her learning occurs right it's always about cautioning where are you the question is always where are you and who are you with all the time she needs to figure out what it is that she did and it may have been an injustice that was perpetrated upon her it happens all the time injustice happens all the time horrible things have happened I don't get upset about that because there are moments that happen and it's understanding how it happens that keeps you away from the moment we're occurring and that's life so the sling and error that they have to deal with in prison is just a preparation for the bigger sling and error that they're going to hit when they hit the street it just gets big so the reality is again I'm there to fix me I'm working on me and that's how the circle functions so she's working on her you didn't get her in the trouble of responsibility that's not you but you learned something from that and now you question was I responsible how do I play into this so that's your story and you're moving along and gathering more experience and becoming a bigger human being which makes you a better facilitator which makes you a better artist and I think it's kind of what Delia was saying about having love for everyone so the stuff we sometimes initially have a reaction of can't they just give us the space to do our work can't they just participate we want them to be in the circle with us and there's a lot of resistance to that because of their own stuff that they're working on so for me it's about finding empathy for them and where they're at as well and reminding myself that it's not something I may be able to fix but the invitation is there for them to be seen as well and we found that if we actually check in with them and give them permission to share with us what they're seeing and learning about the young people then they feel like oh I'm being seen in her too if we come in with our frustration front and center with the restrictions that get thrown at us and the behaviors that sometimes come out of nowhere that we don't anticipate from the staff and the administration we have no idea about the layers of things that are happening when we're not there we're there for a short amount of time and it's so complex it's so complex so for me that level of compassion I have to check myself over and over and over to say it's the compassion for this whole community here that's my concentration too on the ensemble and there are individual obligations to the ensemble so a lot of the students that I'm working with this is the highlight of the week I mean I come in on Friday night I try to bring a Friday night experience I'm bringing beer in or anything like that but I try to bring a celebratory experience around Shakespeare, around the theater and this becomes the highlight of their week a lot of times they tell me that time and time again and so they're very protective of the guys in the ensemble and they live in a strict program called PLUS a purposeful living united through service which it's a merit based program but they're all five years or less before re-entry so they can be in the shower during count and get kicked out of that that unit you know it's kind of draconian so they look out for each other a little bit more so that's my biggest triumph in this work I think is their connection to one another their re-emergence of self over this process because I teach in pretty much semesters that's kind of the structure that was forced upon me that this guy's going to help me actually erase I hope but at the end of that six months the communication, the openness the authenticity that they have with the circle with each other with Shakespeare honestly is mind blowing and so if you take the lesson of the ensemble I think into your circle and what's our contract with one another that might help people keep it in check when the other six and a half days that we're not in a facility because there are times I come in they're just down like this we lost seven people out of the unit for no reason basically just cleaned house and then I lost two of my guys the verge of just you know and I've never seen them again but that's just part of the work I want to go on to the back I'm just so moved by this panel I'm like tearing up I'm appreciative of this work that you're doing because I know that many of those bodies that are incarcerated are black and brown so thank you for that sorry I feel polisily we'll all be joining you I um I was really uh very interested in what Scott you had to say because I work at Yale University and I've been given the opportunity to expand what Yale Repertory Theater is doing as far as community engagement and this work has definitely been missing from my practice as an artist and an activist I think I'm afraid of it quite frankly the idea of going into a prison building frankly scares the shit out of me and so I'm just wondering as you kind of made the transition into this work what were some of the first steps you took toward it what were some of the fears you had were there any misconceptions you had about it that were kind of you know shattered as you started to really get into the work are there any reasons why someone should not do this work I mean you said that you need more people participating but what are the signs maybe that you see in your organization the resources that you have that you would suggest like maybe not this particular uh work so the first thing I did is like I talked to some really smart people you know developed a network and uh other reasons the Shakespeare and prisons conference happened because prisoners and practitioners didn't have a place to come together we were all kind of siloed and doing the same thing in a million different ways so that's the first step come join that circle and then for me there was a there was a certain commitment there was a certain calling within that that I knew that if I was going to be part of this solution I was going way outside my comfort zone this was my own special gift that I could give to the world and it was scary as hell it really was and I started by first off finding my finding a network finding those who could help me put puzzle pieces together in the beginning and then from that starting to bring performances and and ad hoc workshops as and where they were available with some of the companies that I managed and making this a priority and going back to my school and saying this is what we did with these resources was this a bad thing people like couldn't say nothing and then I started to develop my own program week by week by week but it was getting to know the apparatus of that correctional facility um because if I had just said like here's the other thing like there's so much religion going on in my facility and it's not good religion it's fundamentalist rubbing people's noses in it and I come in and I'm just like it's changed us in you I'm not going to bring God into this equation so I found my own unique way to present my works that would empower the guys and not make them feel like they were judged and victimized as they constantly were and then I just constantly were fine you know I step back after every class and I'm like what did I do right what did I do wrong so that self-reflection is really essential part of this and am I okay am I not okay and I see people that going and start programs that they get too close and that's dangerous there has to be a professional boundary you can love these guys there's compassion for these girls these women but you have to find a place that keeps the program safe I think the there are as many models of this work as there are individuals doing this work the reason that we created the Shakespeare Prison Network is to be a resource to each other but I think more important it is to do conferences like this to say we're here to help because the work is so big it's endless there's a place for everybody and that's if you're called to do this work I feel I can feel your heart and there are those that have gone before you who will give you anything you want and everything the generosity is enormous and you will find your way in and when you find your way in you will then be doing the authentic work that you are called to do and who you are and how you want to do that there is no one way to do that but there are a lot of people that have a lot of experience with dealing with corrections problems I've had in 22 years have never been with the prisoners they've always been with the administration always so if you don't take the administration into account if you're not dealing with the administration on a daily basis the same way that you're working with those prisoners you're going to get you're gone and there's always a way to find your and less my guys get so angry and the women the jubis think I'm pretty cool so we're here that's why we did this panel this panel is to come and say there's going to be 25 people here at TCG that want to know about this work and who are also doing this work and that's how we teach each other that's what we're about is to say there's a resource if you're called we can help 1-800 I just want to say a quick thing about demystifying too because I feel like society has put a label on prison and in removing those bodies from our society in a place that's locked and I hear you on the fear part of it and I think any human being has that because we've been conditioned to have that and at the same time we're talking about human beings these are human beings and we all every one of us have to make choices every day that are good or bad or neutral or whatever and so I think in the end there's a place around demystifying and thinking that it is a place that's certainly special work I don't mean to say that what we do is not ultra important what we're working with human beings and I think that's where the heart center needs to remain I may have been lucky because my dad was a prison chaplain so I had a little bit of insight ahead of time but yeah just that human to human thing that I think that Kurt is eloquently as usual talking about I want to say something quick too little so if I could like I didn't know before I began what I was getting in for and the big surprise is I keep saying this word I'm sorry apologies is love man like bam I'm going to prison and I don't that's the least afraid I am in that week is when I'm in there you know and Alan and I a week ago today we're at two rivers watching the Tempest together and after the place over the room just explodes with laughter and volunteers and hugs and love so much love it knocks you down it's so beautiful and I didn't know that that would happen but I thought let's put on a play and and I don't know if that would be other people's experience or what the like Kurt's saying all the programs are different I don't know what other people will find but one thing that you might find is is some is like some giant love blast that you didn't know was coming and just sorry to speak to that point but I think it's important also to remember for anyone thinking about volunteering or going into a prison that has some of those fears is to remember that you're bringing acceptance and compassion into a place where it's completely void of that and when you bring that in you'll get it back a hundred Do you still have a question so you can't help it Well I was touched by what this woman from the Paul said about the the power of this work to transform people inwardly and I mean that's what you were speaking to that's why that woman found herself in isolation for three weeks she discovered something inside of herself and that's what this work does and so I was curious about how much check it has done and because I think that's what sounds like that's what needs to happen to keep up with the transformation that's happening with people but I was at that performance that Johnny and Alan were just describing and it was my first time in the prison I was scared to go and so I'm coming at this from a very different perspective it was something very new to me having done been an artistic director at the theater that was playwright centric so this is still very new to me and walking out of that performance it was the tempest and I was struck by how disorienting it is being inside because of the fluorescent lighting and I looked at the clock on my way out and it was nine o'clock at night and it could have been noon it's like the Las Vegas experience you just have no sense of time outside of that building into the most glorious sunset I had seen in decades there had been a tempest there was lightning in the sky there had been thunder and rain and I was just really knocked out by the irony of that experience and my first thought was those men have no idea what was happening outside they won't because there's no windows whatever it all happened in here and in here and so I've just been really thinking about that a lot the power of the imagination and what this work does I would posit that that sunset wasn't trying to be a sunset it just was and that it was you who saw the sunset in a different way because you had been transformed you recognized the beauty of it because of the experience that you had but that sunset was as beautiful as every sunset that's ever existed it's just in how you look at it how do you see the world and that's you we're working on and you being able to tell that story you find ourselves in your story and that's how it happens I'm always constantly aware when I step through that solid work it's differencing the pressure and the air it's impossible but it smells different it's brighter and all you've done has gone through one little gait but it is it makes you grateful for the freedom that you have and I'm really conscious of it because a lot of us take it for granted our ability to move through this world yes sir I just have a data back to the data question they want data so that we can get in the door I'm moved by testimony and relationships and that convinces me but that's not what they want is there a network yet where we can somehow fund, participate, gather, commission access it and I'm not even sure how much it plays nationally because I know in Minneapolis 10,000 things there Hengman County, Ramsey County they don't care about each other we can tell Ramsey County this is going great over here and Hengman County goes so loud I don't care so in terms of data how vocal does that data have to be in order to be relevant to them do they look at something and no interest in less ability but I'm gathering that they want to get to very quick for everybody in the room California got their arts and prison program money from the legislature how could they possibly do that they must have put together a very convincing case check with their what their data is probably the strongest in this country so one of the goals of the Shakespeare prison network was to connect with academics and with researchers that would be interested in long term studies so that's kind of at a nation stage right now but that's definitely one of the things that all of us as an international cohort have been clamoring for our long term statistics about recidivism this or that or statewide statistics because funding is a problem we're not necessarily in Indiana going to find funding through our state arts council but a private foundation that it speaks to some goal that they have of engagement in the community if I had a two pager that I could just slip to them that might be the difference between a nay or $150,000 for five years and you were finding more a barrier with the institution than with the funding it's the change in leadership and they're answering to someone else and asking for proof we're now linking all of our activities to recidivism and you can tell me and that's true and that's actually the best data but that's not what they're looking I think what you have to do is find the question behind the question and tell me what you want it's listening deeply into that tell me what you want what kind of data do you and asking the next question because it's only through questioning that you lead someone to their own epiphany it's always through questioning and knowing who you're talking to when I talk to legislators I use one statistic over a 22 year period it's almost a hundred prisoners on the street we have a 6.1% recidivism and it's accurate we don't lie like government does because in the state of Kentucky if you've been out for two years and commit a crime and come back to prison it's not recidivism, it's a new crime if you're in Michigan, it's three years they do smoke and mirrors I just tell the truth which means if a guy's been out for 20 years and he's convicted and comes back I'm going to count it because it's just easier to tell the truth so when I'm talking to legislators at 6.1 we track that our sentence if I'm talking to a warden if I'm talking to a captain they don't give a shit about pardon the French recidivism, right? because that's their job they want to keep their job what they do care about is violence on the earth so I only give one statistic in prison where I have worked after two years of working there we reduced 50 to 60 violent acts per month to below double digits that's what they care about we went below double digits because they want a safe place officers want a safe place prisoners want a safe place so it's knowing what it is that they want and asking a question that's behind the question it'll get you there and I don't provide the answer easily and I don't leap to the answer until I hear recidivism for legislators and violence for officers on the earth and it's an ever changing environment and isn't that beautiful because that's where life is the guys that are men and women that are coming out of prison they're going to figure out who they are because of the stuff that comes out of how difficult it to be on the street that's what we have to prepare ourselves for surviving on the street and so asking the guys what do you need what tools do you need that's the way my struggles function our struggles function it's all about what's the question so we have a question we have a pedagogy our success is based on things that I know that's been based on failure because then I have to figure out why I fail and how I cannot fail again but knowing I'm going to fail again so that's for me a success my success for me is what's my next failure I'm going to, yes Hi, my name is Ines it's very important and I want to thank you so much for everyone for being here I'm going to start I'm a theatre director I'm going to start volunteering right now July and I'm very excited about it for many reasons and especially for what you say and everyone said you said something that you said that we have to be split working with the very young women 18 to 21 so they're in the research library so I know that some days I may have 2, 3 another day I may have 10 so I'm still figuring out what we're going to do together but I'm nervous about the fact that since my own experience I never talked before my own experience is a theatre director that's the way I know how to be in the room to be actors so how I'm going to adapt to people that are not actors first and second that are locked down in these institutions so it's very different than working with actors and how I'm going to manage with my big ego and try because I have plans and I want to do business with that and I'm super excited we're going to make a film we're going to devise I'm sure I'm going to find so many barriers so this is great all that you're talking about because it's also the idealizing that's the great word because I feel that I'm way too much like yes I'm going to and so my question would be like how how to navigate how can you advise me to navigate those barriers and especially the ones that I'm more concerned about are the body language the career things so what because working with actors it's a lot of like yes get together, hold your hands lie on the floor which I know that for inmates you cannot ask them to be lying on the floor because if they're women they can remind them you know, of oppression and things that so all that rules that I kind of starting to know because I'm talking with people that aren't there but I still don't know them very well so I want to have all the freedom that I can to be with them at the same time and know that there's a lot of things that I have to be careful and yes so I would like semi-plastic sorry good luck but you just have to start and I'd say for me and I'm sure we can all talk about this if Kurt can even remember from the very beginning of his tenure in this work but it's going to change so much and I think it's about saying yes to them rather than expecting them to say yes to you right so as a director, as a theatre professional assuming that you have anything to offer these people who are trying to figure out how to survive is a little ridiculous so if we can flip it around and think like I have just a toolkit here that I offer in this space decide together what I mean Kurt talks about the circle I'm sure that you can get more specific and what's your circle going to look like what are the agreements that you can make with this group together so everyone's invested and then know when you need to say yes to them so just a quick example a colleague of mine was running a residency at a girls facility and there was a young woman who was completely shut down she hated the whole experience she kept coming so that was something but she hated the whole experience of the King Lear project and they were writing and we took the script that they were writing and mashed it up into King Lear slash devised piece with their own words and she wrote in her journal she wrote, fuck King Lear I fucking hate Shakespeare I fucking hate this fuck you and my colleague was like, you know what I think we should put that at the end of the piece and she was like what, you know totally taken off guard because someone had taken what she was trying to do to really just express herself I think but in that setting in another context would have been discipline and we were like, yeah, right on I can't, I hear ya let's get to that and so it was so amazing sitting in the audience and watching their performance super strong and super incredible and then at the end she didn't read her own writing someone else wrote it for her but to like with full conviction stand up at the end and say fuck this I fucking hate King Lear fuck Shakespeare it was incredible it was like the room was just we were crying, we were laughing it was amazing and so I think to me that is right there is like how do I say yes and recognize that resistance just wants to be heard in the same way that everything else does to do to maybe assist the journey ask not what you can do for the circle ask for the circle you are totally prepared, you've got arsenal of stuff until it's called you just go in as a human being with an open heart and offer non judgment and unconditional love like Johnny says and that's how it all begins because that's all we want so I'm not there to teach them anything I'm there to listen I'm there to say to myself what can this circle teach me and every circle is there so you're ready you're just going to be a human being and find that right moment that spark and idea will come but the number one thing is to be a human being and they'll flock to you like moths that's what they want yeah wield that authority wisely because it's thrust in their face every moment and so when you come in and as opposed to boarding above these guys and you come in and you say let's hold hands like what and then the next time you come in and you say let's hold hands now we're going to close our eyes and then the next time you come in you're like alright let's do some breathing let's do let's do you know son's augmentation let's touch our toes these things that are so incredibly laden with vulnerability and the guys will be so resistant to it first but you just take it at the pace of the circle you know and you put your agenda aside and you have a knowledge base, you have a knowledge bank don't think that at the end of the first time you go in there's going to be this big glossy production there may not be but that doesn't mean you didn't succeed that doesn't mean that you haven't changed lives you know just getting people to connect through the 5 feet of concrete that they have built around themselves over 1, 2, 5, 20, 30 years to get them to to reach out and to touch to to lift an energy ball off the ground that's a huge success Sara so we have one time for one last question I'm going to stand up so you can see thank you for sharing all your experience I really appreciate it I have a what if it's not Shakespeare question heresy heresy I work in communities telling their own stories but I've never worked in an incarceration setting and I think we'll be doing that in the future so I know that we won't be doing Shakespeare I think and I'm curious maybe for Mara and Alan and for everyone would the reception in the powers that be be different if you went in and said we're going to be working with folks telling their own stories versus we're doing Shakespeare because Shakespeare always has that automatic this is real art seal of approval and you've spoken about working interweaving personal stories into the Shakespeare work and if there's a different experience I think everyone that sounds like in your work is just expressing their own stories it's just what the final outcome may be and then for Alan specifically as someone who participated in this program would you have been more or less interested if you had heard this is a theater workshop versus you'll be doing Shakespeare versus you'll be telling your own story as a kind of a true point well I think I was looking for something something positive like I mentioned earlier when you enter into that space with acceptance and compassion then you receive that back and I think that's what I was looking for that was lacking in my life and I think whatever the outlet is whether it's sharing our stories whether it's Shakespeare whether it's some other whatever is going to be beneficial so whatever the platform is just approaching it with that with that acceptance and compassion and letting them into that will be successful no matter what I'm grappling with how to respond because I feel like well first of all there's just a thing around confidentiality and safety so I don't know how it differs in adult facilities because I don't work with them but for young people we actually are not we're not allowed to identify that we're working with period and then there is a lot more oversight when we're drifting into the territory getting at their own stories I think in terms of buy-in not from the participants but from the staff and administration there's something safer about Shakespeare although I think that can apply to any text at all and we haven't just in Shakespeare we did one time Jesus taught the A train we used text from that, scenes from that as I mentioned we're exploring more historical stuff so I think the text can be generated for me it's just being really clear with those that you're working with where the levels of safety are so both in the participant level and on the administration level some people wanted to share their stories and some people just don't and I think I wouldn't want to be in a situation where we're enforcing anything one thing that we do is we have them right but then we also give them permission to determine what to share so we go through a process where they're helping us call and they tell each other they say that needs to be in our script right? you need to make sure that that's in our script and then we give them the choice of whether or not they want to read their own story or not we never tell the audience who and who this was so they are here in Snippets but not their own so I think you have to first of all figure out what are the rules in the particular facility or the population that you're working with and then I think it matters where the story is told we did one time have a young person who was working with us in community and out of school programs we were doing a mashup on love in general and using different Shakespeare plays as a platform and one of the prompts that we were asking was what would you do for love and her crime was sorry her crime was that she had actually killed someone out of love who was a kind of passion and she decided to tell that story and she wrote the story and we didn't want to be in it but her younger cousin was in a program with her at the time and this obstacle program with her and her cousin played her and there was something for her that was I think given the platform of love that allowed her to take that step and we talked about it for a long time the staff like is this okay? we had to check with DUIS like is this okay and keep them very much in the loop and it ended up being an incredible experience for everyone and she was cool with it but she had reached a point where she was ready to do that and we were at the container that could hold that for her but that I feel like was a very unusual special thing and she had been working with us for a number of years so I don't know if that gives you enough of a response but just caution you didn't think about it as being therapy oh yeah I mean I have worked with a lot of populations these kind of best practices and ethics around telling your own story just not in the incarceration setting so I mean those questions I work with all the time in terms of survival and sexual abuse and other things I was just curious in terms of the in the incarceration setting with the officials are you more or less likely to get permission to do the program from the institutions in that question of like Shakespeare being considered real art versus just telling your own story I'm just going to say you want to teach them it can be done, people do device theater in prison we work with Playwright, well Playwright's projects works in the same facility that we work in and they go and they teach playwriting courses and you act those out so that's a form of device work right there I wish we had a couple of people that did not do Shakespeare work but they cancelled out last minute so I'm sorry but they would be able to help navigate that as well did we have a sign-in sheet no I took it as a dance people were going to stand in if we can I'd like to see if people are interested please sign up if you have something we're going to have a conference next year on practitioners in San Diego so if you all want to be involved in that and find out more information sign up and we'll be getting you out some information around that it'll be next March March 23rd and that's for not because it's called the Shakespeare in prison conference but to be clear it's for all types of prison practitioners yes thank you if anybody wants to see Minneapolis in December we're not having a conference but 10,000 banks is doing a gathering and I'm just trying to gather some folks tell a way where folks have been starting to do these things so we can sit in the same room for a few days and eat and drink and share stories this kind of stuff because there's still so much overlap and everybody's doing their own thing, their own version there's so much to be gained and we don't go in and create we just don't perform but there's still so much that I'm hearing that it's making so much sense and going which is just fantastic there's some flyers there alright great thank you guys


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The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has been advised to leave up to expectations at the Supplementary Election for Iquanderal Federal Constituency holding on Saturday. The Labour Party candidate for the Supplementary Election and Iquanderal Federal Constituency of Emo State, Uche, Oguago, who gave the advice said, the commission will be held totally responsible for any lapses that will prevent free-fair and credible supplementary election. Addressing a press conference at his country home at the Kabul community in the Lucky Government area, it further alleged that the APC candidate Akira Chi-Emadi and his father Charles Emadi had perfected plans to manipulate the election. In his reaction, the APC candidate accused the Labour Party candidates and his people for being the ones trying to rig the election. Officers and born-down polling units, whatever APC is doing, I remain someone that will not lose my identity because of any election. I have a lot of elections to run because I have a lot of age on my side. So I will not resort to intimidation of the public through any means. I believe that our security agencies have been doing a good job.


This river runs west and counter to every story I drank deep in those small dull days strange heavy with collective unconscious with all of those west running improbable relations spending lavish hands worth of emotion on this imagined west in this city Which also runs west into an ocean. I own no stories for a Borrowed ocean full of marvels fed by these long men who collect different water Who polish stones that won't tell me the future in any language that I know My brother and I are driving in an empty cell lane We are God's evil to these settlers. They might throw us under the shift chains. We take wolf naps We don't know what else we good at besides this traveling state lines in the night tide passing through beachhead America passing with Hurricane memory 3,000 exits of sludge-babe depart time Everything south of Canada is extra judicial gun oil and your local unemployment factory in a few hours We will fit in relax for now hop out the car And I'm a dirty shoe illusion leaning on the trunk with the ghosts of switch blades and other rusty services I'm enemy humor and traveling father's ashes on the backseat behind two sons in the lane now for metaphor Well, maybe a metaphor about something unfinished one million hands passing us through the Midwest Last wishes by way of fishtail daydreams by way of collision home in the badlands of translation Relax passing great grandparents finger bones fathers ashes no longer arms just tattoos Badlands imagination barreling translating a father's last trip home. We don't know what else we good at besides this traveling exits and collage exits and pieces pieces of 1970s kitchen plates and a good luck refrigerator We still ain't eight the narcotics swing or how we see yesterday get out the car against desperate white supremacy Gas station greeting stray dogs and other earthborne alarms.  We don't know what else we good at besides this traveling Two coins of the other toll is us character in this date on a journey of a million parallels Some like is better high some like is better drunk every late night has a Summit to it cousin breeze and murder rate barreling like upborn love songs your ancestors are smiling as we pass the time When we ride this language past Gary 3000 cast-iron lining proud for arms for meals three-man ghost story fishers of ourselves Cards dealt Narrative implied maybe something unfinished like an Indiana hurricane or two midnight semil walkie Or no arms no tattoos. No Chicago ever again. We don't know what else we good at besides this traveling and besides Heaven is all goodbyes Anyway drive Drive placidly through the noise and haste drive placidly Drive It's not a secret that most people waste a lot of time and if they were doing something different They would feel better and in fact be better people So tell your secrets to someone no one talks to in the buzz and hum of conversation overlapping rants implications Hydra secrets out loud It's the tingle of karma and what seeds we so I Am an American therefore I drive I want to do the right thing, but I have Retroactive amnesia. I know what I said when I said it, but now I don't remember any more time is short-stopping for cigarettes Blow smoke in my face. I gotta go I gotta go. I gotta go It's gonna be an early night or is it good sense has coagulated We're all Dehydrated and the last thing we need is another drink, but that's what's likely to happen The city smells like urine We endure run-of-the-mill Pilsner kisses love without flip-flops love in a full lotus position Love that just misses masking what harvest comes of bones in mass graves a crack head Sings too softly to be heard over boomboxes and traffic passing through What can soften the flavor of bad dreams and reality to bitter to smoke How do you write a love song in a time of war? I might as well be sitting in an ashtray rolling in the dust of my own exhalations Sing me a love song anyway. I'll just pick up in media's race like they say You can look away flick a switch turn a dial be virtually a lot And there's a lot to look away from well So fill it up with disney's and Rassland costumes your children are spitting images your mind reeling in their disbeliefs now video watching after news After shooting information at Littleton near Denver suburban high school middle-class Colorado trench coat mafia now being watched by video against minorities and students of purported Christian persuasion and athletic prowess 14 hospitalized a student body of 1800 after explosions now being watched by Video background fantasies 20 people in all black men painting nails and eyes black apocalyptic death cult images intercuts of Informations after shotgun blasts swat teams hostages clothing as costume in hiding in drag dragons Dungeons fantasy game video game going out with a flame kamikaze maybe nazi to multimedia ultimate shootout in the living room intimate and intimidation Shucks ma we was only kidding and then it got real like we were in this movie this power We really had them being paranoid of Us Vampires with deadly fire and reach ma you should have seen us. They thought we laid minds Ma imagine that us in trench coats a real mafia for those few Precious moments ma they used to make fun of us Well qr has challenged me. I had kind of suggested some kind of improv activity And he handed me this and said you can read that Maybe no glasses helps it does look at that Is it the work of poets to create soft cozies around the edges of contemporary society that protect one another Is it the work of poets to make sense of Displacement and tragedy if we pick the brightest colors The prettiest marking pens our shiniest words and Gloss them over and around and create pattern Can we protect one another? Can we hold each other safe? I Find myself worrying about the fixed like the weather of the seasons I can do nothing about like the reasons of second nature's repetitious fancies I choke at rancid cues of stone too high to tiptoe around Stumbling premises of apt gesture that ingest a little too much far-gone just in cardboard styling and water rat scurry Smart at those hip-toned otherness who hinted do's with indigo obsolence dribbling from the corners of their wit I find myself adopting bad habits thinking about what thought I thought I have nothing to do with and can't help Looking at pictures of terminal cancer of desire who sniffling wheeze and whisper please and sputter and gravel Gravel for tardy resurrection modeled complete complexed artistry in rhinestone settings and backseat Jalopy drag What bad thought junkie I am strung out on the concrete of protein the lips of staggering of adjectives Informing the sepia image drunk with multi-form gray and guilty esoteric verse that binds and hides the sun in amorphous profusions nouns listing on their sides y'all can't handle this This is exactly what I would want to be doing on a Sunday Making decisions on the fly Deciding whether I'm gonna drop f-bombs for posterity You can usually count on me for that or waxing nostalgic about You know problems that we've been considering for a long time, so they seem more cuddly than current problems climate change This heat grips me like the plethora embrace of a discount dominatrix.  I'm a willing slave and everything I do heats her up sweat dribbling Down fishnets into stiletto boots Climate change. I saw these with Out our home becoming victims of their own cons robbing the public dry on welfare lines mental health clinics for the general public now Displaying their sores ghost dancers in the streets shaman shaman trying game in public acts provoking charitable retributions from the heads of states down to you and me and on the party line I Saw this army of criminals waiting on the corners skillfully plotting on the corners in heavy rains scheming as competent as NASA for its own ends and means only in Snowdrifts at midnight Gracefully evading the sharp braces of winds Amazing the others at their stamina their abilities to launch and operate a full-scale production under conditions like these I Saw these super people without jobs who kept on standing there with no visible means of support This is literally a random poem pulled out of a pilot But it's kind of excellent and perfect because it's called narcissism The shadow of the Lorax plays on the walls of Plato's cave where Christ was buried and on the third day Sisyphus rolled the rock away and invented religion To fuel all feuds with folks who might yet be friends The world is getting small or the world is small and getting smaller and Unlikely oasis in space. I am you all the myths are true We are all gods at all times and of course we see ourselves in every drop of water it is us a Tour guide through your robbery. He also is Cigarette saying look what I did about your silence Ransom water in box spring gold this decade is only for accent grooming I guess Ransom water in box spring gold the corner store must die war games I guess all these tongues rummage junk the start of master structure and begins and ends in restaurant bathrooms And some people use another people clean you telling me there's a rag in the sky waiting for you Yeah, we've been seen we set of stays we should have fit in you know warehouse jobs are for communists But now more cord during hallway of walked into our lives now the whistling is less playful and the bar bar overcrowded to my dear If it is not a city it is a prison If it has it if it has a prison it is a prison not a city You know when a courtyard talks on behalf of military issue all walks take place outside of the body dear life to your left The medieval painting to your right none of this makes an impression crop people living in thin air You have five minutes to learn how to see through this breeze when a mask goes sideways Bob wire becomes a floor Bob wire becomes the root 40 feet into the sky becomes out of bounds when a mask breaks in half Mind which way the eyes go they killed the world for the sake of giving everyone the same back story We're watching Gary Indiana fight itself into the sky old pennies for wind for that wind feeling you get before the hood Goes up and over your headache pennies that stick together mocking all aspirations stuck together pennies was the first newspaper I've read along with the storefront dwelling army that always lets us down where the Holy Spirit favors the back room souls in a Situation they offer a hundred ways to remain a loser souls watching a clock hoping that I know a lot of sad people I was we talking about again the narrator asked the graveyard ten minutes flat said the graveyard the funeral only took ten minutes I never tell that to anyone again You just gonna pin the 90s on me all 30 years of them then watch it I know the difference between sleep and satire the pyramid of corner stores fell on our heads We died right away that building wants to climb up and jump off another building. These are downtown decisions Somewhere on this planet. It's August 7th, and we running down the rest thinking one more needs to come with me What evaporated on earth so that we could be sent back down? colonized American daughters English has left me speechless in at least three other languages My mother tongue ate up all the words that might have been mine If you can't say it, you can't think it and you can't do it What's left all that's left a few family keepsakes quaint old trinkets a recipe or two Self-loathing a desire to fit in This is how wisdom gets lost and never finds her way home so my man whose daddy Took him to mr. Michelle's bookstore, and you met Ben Davis and Richard Wright and I mean to ask you if you knew Vito Mac Antonio during those times of rust that busted the poor in spirit down even further Gave the boys free passes to the Taj Mahal Sent the slickers into literary country to slice away the balls Pudenda of story and song. What are the lessons of those times you? Transcended not too easily yet Maybe too quickly in earnest gestures of flash and humanizing frenzy nurturing yourselves on exotic places exotic people who Recognized in you their lack and asked to be fed biscuits instead of stones and Steins of imported beers and the lines of Palaver who use canvas and notebooks as bedroom props bed after bed What are the lessons of those times your distant? Magnanimity never tease them nor gave the condescending nod and knowing look in the Transactions of identity they didn't know and you knew well What are the lessons of those time? I wish I'd asked But years of research tells me just the same We sold the words for gathering berries when Great Aunt Lydia needed school clothes a Picture of her wearing them snuggles in an envelope in my father's bedroom Some family pictures you just don't know what to do with precious as thorny canes Homeplace when as a matched set for bail money mays brother. I can't remember which framed says family story But he must have skipped because we never got those words back No witnesses No witnesses and broad daylight Let's be clear for a moment. Nothing has been lost Some of it was traded Some of it was stolen these are the colonial times and community memory stretches thin Days are you have to travel light? Pick carefully the things to leave behind no matter how beautiful I keep the word for catfish Folded tight in the lining of my left shoe safe and close for my boys Have I messed this up for everybody now? If you reverse the car any farther You will run over all the scenes in the back of your mind. I Never cared for teachers just the patterns of their fainting spells, of course Of course induced by wall art all that to say Propaganda is courage, man The price sticker hides my tattoo. I treasure my problem with the world My mother becomes from Brooklyn first thing in the morning. That's a proverb around these parts Proverb or peasant entrance password Writing short notes to famous Europeans on the back of postcards with ransom requests They reply with a newsreel or cigarette announcement.   I believe with trumpet was the first possessed object to fly Keep going.  I got a thousand paintings like these Cascading down my skinny arms dictionaries piled up to the window bars A reminder to the population that your blanket can work with or against you human reef We will be a big human reef for concepts that finally gain a metaphysical nature And they will swim around our beautiful poses. We stop being flashbacks Then stop being three different people Then I was alone the pistol one city away One of the drug triangles lines runs through my head. I tap the bottle twice and consider the dead refreshed They don't you want to rest your bravery?   I can't possess the body of a hermit I must be the last of his smoke now running the other way with three blocks of alley tucked under my arms You ever see a man get to the bottom of his soul in a car ride down a missing cousin street? Half step to the right. I mean, I took the whole car outside of history Half step to the right. I mean a whole pack of wolves stepped to my left road marker Is what I call the light bulb we had for a son a whole civilization might slink to the sink Or a changang shuffling next to a sucker also known as the lone look in the mirror A stack of money starts talking from four cities away America drives drunk She's a bloated old whore vomiting the star-spangled banner on the sidewalk Oh say can you give it to me? Give it to me. I'm free What happened? I just want to watch tv Don't touch that dial. We have remote control Vertical and horizontal hold We watch tv on endless stream But there used to be a broadcast day They'd spin the star-spangled banner while we watched the astronauts plant the flag on the moon The test pattern turned on colored bars and blocks and that single tone woke me up if I fell asleep in front of the tube The happiest memories of my childhood are of my family gathered My mother never cooked. So we watched tv together Star Trek and doctor who Wonder Woman and Saturday morning cartoons I liked the click of the dial I liked how static really looked like noise I didn't believe in radiation or god or really anything I couldn't see I like to sit really close to the tv My mother would scream, but I never did go blind I like to press my eye against the curved glass I couldn't see inside But I saw how the picture made itself of millions of tiny boxes of color Constantly rearranging to entertain us to sustain us What happened? A crash drunk driver Won't make the news Oh, say can you red eyes and blood white Sidewalk the ambulance blue nitrile gloves Can you see?   Thank god What language do they make duck soup with dear gulp el golpe? quack quack That season again The Nina the Pinta and the Santa Maria have been carried overland for far too long Every indigenous child handed a ballast stone at birth Five adults masked on shoulders Four young women untangling rigging and elders Folding sun-dried sails flaking with salt We walk the southern wagon trails to the pacific like an unhealthy song Singing everyone west for all time. We have carried Chris in our pockets Our shoes are muddied with him and word of him Our faces are marked, our hands are mussels soar, our voices are raven growling songs of the lost The planks have been sent out into the California surf But they float back Every october they float back on shore Here comes the tap water Whistling past our heads Institution tile under brake pedals Matching white watches painted on palms for smashing grab recollections People who are related by ballad hot plate failures fishing for polyterians The matchstick that is a draft card by the time the loner finishes sweeping the train Also related by ballad under paved streets hanging like strips of film in thin air I missed the carpentry more than the religion.   I once played He decided not to kill me like giving loose change. They don't teeter now tall man I was nobody at point blank range Nobody finally again lung first. I fell a love then a rule then a hate dance moves within murder attempts within dance moves They lean back and be celebrated by small people He said the clothes on my life teacher needed new patches sit back and disrespect at all I've given up on counter revolution. I said Well, well, then here's your weapon little bank Hey, knowing what you know now Would you still have written fortunes on the bottom of church shoes and put them back on the rack? And how does everyone think that a rich guy is their twin along with other tantrums is my cue fortune teller half Sleeps while talking about a mere treading all over the posters in my childhood room And how cold calculation really mothers nothing in a vision of chess pieces and chains He says then my friend you will have fear and then you will have form This is from sidewalk indian by kim shuck infections and narratives hard to tell if this story is remembered or invented I'm in no position these days to know too many hours of pouring over blankets and miscellaneous strips of weaving and how many times can I catch the intended pox anyhow There is that Throat tickle of repeated histories And I confess that I can't pick one of them from the other Anymore either the threads packed by years of group delusion repainted woodwork and the deep desire for self justification For belonging our truth has stained this flooring has died your hymns And if the hum of history before the invasion isn't part of your dream soundtrack yet Then it soon will be That was by kim shuck now it's just tumble town all around More haves rule more have knots there is less to have to be had For all is another rule is trash is fact and it's all over town now The top hits bottom bottom nowhere in sight just the Aftermasses of terminal blight You know, there is some stuff you just can't make up. This is the last blue cloud quarter blue cloud quarterly Which was a publication out of marvin south dakota This particular issue was poems by mary tall mountain who used to make food for homeless people a few blocks from here I wanted to Read this Is there light still springing At that house in capronone. She waited at the door In myself. I felt angry No Of simon. I willed him admit her She of the burning hair the magdalene She came to my couch. I heard the trickster Pharisees clicking their beads I saw their wagging beards as I lay at the table Sharing fare with judas and my brother. She bore an urn of alabaster Oh the blaze of her hair more bright than my woven walls I thought of john across the way chained by hered on tipas, of course For this mary was imprisoned too But the bright hair burst free Her tears laved my dusty skin Spike gnarled glazed the air Now I felt the gust of judas's anger and that was begun Which is finished tomorrow yet Tell me is there light still springing from the marvelous hair of the magdalene When a drummer is present They are god I am I am not an eye I am a black commons I'm writing my new tattoo out on bus station glass making tattoos all afternoon trying to talk myself into seeing the decade through And I must really be the devil's front man staring at an empty bus that I imagine in fact carries paintings of people And the man drunk behind the wheel has to choose between a black and white toddler after school in america on a california street That doesn't need a name nor california No one on the street has a job and therefore no one is there I colored my oppressor's gun and dance floor for him in the same day The joke began The walk under bus seats is fine by me as long as I get to the front The joke concluded And tuesday is downhill entertainment or commotion in the ashtray the day that jail quotas get filled or the day that the planet plays flat Maybe the capitalist says stadium seats on fire and cause the economic progress The communist has plenty of time to finish his cigarette and lie to his boss killer lying down in front of a Tank I have a small statue built in my chest and also an anchor upside down in the air worried about the walls I forgot that the ceiling was closing in on me too That's my take on my alcoholism I'm hunched over a meal like eight five years ago That's my take on the look on my face curse god alone took another step up the staircase and for a second forgot all occupants of the world Beginning with this house this action hero of one street proportion declares rap music is the way to count blessings The 80s were better than its fiction I will be half eaten my entire life always walking beside myself with a gun to my head And another one pointed at passersby half of me all of you But i'm always happy to see you with a miraculous route you took through the threat Honest pay is a knife in his arm honest paying my chest is a broken lock on the monument tell you the truth I forget what his hands look like what he did with them or what kind of third eye the handcuffs cut into his wrist understanding The opposite of love is ego And neither of us have anything in the game So let's ruin our friendship. Let's drink cheap beer on a first date that lasts at least seven years Maybe sometime we'll need some sleep. Maybe sometime But not now I'm wearing one batman sock And one with blue stripes I never got the hang of matching Except when I'm with you You know, uh, we are happy but strangely insignificant to most souls No match for human kisses. I wonder what the speechwriter would tell himself now I look twice at the tower and write nothing Flashing back to a high school teacher talking to me like I've ever listened to jazz music On the day someone got killed TV static then the 70s then tv static then the 70s again Then the coin trick They look at black people twice sometimes Then the 70s again Then the dinner plate cornered all I could think to do was admire their guns One thousand knocks on the door made me a happy dead man The weight and shape of bravery is particularly your own It's not the only challenge you'll face Morning today was not as cold Tests of your heart are constant. I've seen you wedging yourself into cracks between window And frame seen you squarely on your feet beak to muzzle with mythology Fortunately a story you recognize Conclusions reel out in all directions blue and light blue and then unseeable But this is the thing you've seen caught here by your own childhood sweat dream In this moment you are too tired for fear Eyes open this is actually dangerous An equation of meat and alcohol and anger your calm doesn't help and you're not interested in the choreographies of submission A physical language that too many women are forced to learn Feet firm you do not conform Sad for the moment you do not conform Tomorrow can be anything else Tonight is not yet an emergency The first cigarette Makes this parking lot my bedside The second cigarette makes this parking lot my front pocket Next I hold the witness like a newborn though half-hearted brittle teeth by my art Watch how we talk in depopulated circles You caught me Said the hangman to the condemned Caught me red-handed But the hangman's hand kept moving nevertheless Biting flags eastbound and other familiar sound effects A revolutionary would call us a landless fire The night train agrees that these are my keys. I'm just admiring your fabric lord My art is rational therefore my life is in danger Traveling up the tap this time and it looks like water was never here Just jail noise and the jail noise that politicians speak This world is weak Bosses graffiti too many times I tell the witness all characters are in motion regardless of what that day did to your disposition I also left that piece of good news in the ashtray next to my nickname In every room has a kitchen in it Every life has company to feed every room has a rumble in the corner Eighth grade heroin in my hand along with pieces of an uncle a purgatory grease fire got us worried A phone rings in 1988 and epoch begins when a mother hangs up. This is not writing poems. This is wishing Car loads well understanding Harder times coming when respect isn't mutual Power usurped by men in expensive suits against the will of ordinary people Bamboozled double-talked and flim flammed We stand cardboard in our hands we the for the by the Comes the revolution Us folks are the peoples who look towards the sea vision and memory past Perfect futures are stoned about our musics like seaweeds on the shore our eyes Hearts of fire dancing on looms aghast and bedazzled caress in these sands hand clapping spirits Our souls are numberless Our souls are numberless buckets and bus stations Tennessee bound and Tennessee was bound to do it Shark to music.  How many times I got to leave you at home? You know guns don't really talk and gods only talk to themselves I never knew your father, but one drifter to another. I see you never stood a chance tornado pick toothpick for mask 185 gambler past slavers trade or marble past smoke back and forth to a fork and back rec center's crumbling sign on the backs of his knuckles the man the myth the summer dust puddle under dirty eyes 10 numbers to rest messed up the cards the deck of right eyes I own three devils in a joke about a virgin Worried that too much heaven is possible a fan of anxious comics waiting behind tornadoes for food That was by tango ison martin But the interesting thing one of the things about doing reading one another's work that I always notice I have a really hard time with one or two poets not like Not trying to do them Carolee sanchez is one of them. I have a really hard time not trying to read it like she does But I got to say about tango's work if I just unplug my brain It's an entirely different poem because I've heard you read pretty much everything at this point rather And it's like it does not come off the same way when I do it. So thank you for indulging me on that one We are also the ones spoken of in prophecy we fence walkers with multilingual imaginings of birdmen sunflowers and rattlesnakes to We time travelers who carry our part of one Of the fires or maybe the fire is gone underground and waits Some find themselves marked with a scar where a coal was picked Or just as it looked likely to go out But were written on by that heat with words of their own history Just the same on some of us the marks can be faint. Yes the sound of those eastern rivers Not even in dreams. Yes, still it doesn't take much breath to relight us all to a set a whole new generation ablaze When the streetlight uh prophet speaks by kim shuck he did That was my interpretation I learned all my spanish in school I never tried to pass for white But I have been passed Because it's good to be white in america and mother knows best To give a not quite white baby white names that don't explain such dark eyes and such tight curls My name never stopped mean girls hissing gringa colaprieta and guera and taco Brown on the inside not quite white on the outside You would not believe how white people talk About other people when they think you're white How it's more polite to say spanish instead of mexican And the subtle shift in tone when your mexican is discovered your tortillas uncovered I never tried to pass for white But I have been passed because white people who like me Want to give me the benefit of the doubt And let me tell you sister there's nothing like white privilege and my mother knew it So when people would ask are you italian or greek she would laugh and say good guess That's true It's so disappointing such dark eyes and such tight curls Failed to fit in Not white Not mexican I have been passed. I identify as white trash My mother is mexican, but her family doesn't mind porque no hay indios in la familia And since I learned all my spanish in school It was years before I understood it's good to be white in america We used to dance We used to dance to the drums To the drums To the drum drum drum and pulsate knowledge stoke and stomp steps of flowing science smoking Hours of rhythm imagining wise of delicate proportion We used to dance to learn we used to dance and learn to the drumming and the hum That wove the selves and stars into bright black eyes visions Stomp and stroke pulsating language all around flow of rhythm and balance song of smoking house of blaze Imaginations rigorous ways Then this great cosmic joke One feather dropping wise The river wakes Shakes her wings as if her body were a bell as if bells yearned to ring warning She arranges her feathers and one drops wise and damp to the pebble bank That sings importance and responsibility As if rivers forget what they can be forget how to rainbow or essential lessons in healing As if bodies have forgotten the ocean As if we've let slip the habits of salt blood and dancing with the moon A palm placed on the fallen feather nose remembers that selling isn't knowing Slip your banks shake the equation of wings Let's start the deep work of making well From a two-floor skyline An abandoned house talked to me It said young man, you are heroic in 10 years old Among 20 generations of friends Friends will free fall away Free fall up Free fall the walls with fifth grade speed to industrial paint behind secondhand fences young man use quick knife tongs Be boning brass be last laugh music. You are always leaving Always one change of clothes from the door a life in escape A two-floor skyline said you're the guy that dies in the middle The friend more blues than skin The face the cheap hotels schizophrenics can place with 90 mile per hour right eyes among dry heat killers Once children three feet high and roaming and repeating and aiming at cotton mirrors that hang on breathing walls You are 10 years old tagging along yawning at well lit violence whistling two shop songs You will be useful You will be high and alone flying on a nephew dragon from a $20 family in a sky that calls itself just more soil Around walls that are just walls except these walls suggest you make wives out of highs and currency Here to air is polite to sleepy glass and bullion walls young man. You will come to admit There's sometimes Suicide is power and some people live stronger as ghosts and sometimes the afterlife empties Billions of souls enter objects like playground bullets and abandoned door frames Even broken glass will prove it has voice too There are 24 hours behind your back. Look over your shoulder right now. Can you hear it the sound of drums punching themselves out The sound of piano parts learned in between assassination attempts be boning brass be boning enough for two souls Be invincible again suffer red-eyed accents professional finger tips gifted victims six in the morning beer The first month of probation to shout at the wall see these words that shouldn't be home look behind you again Be invincible again be windward be a sad machete be her son Be a thief still is back and laugh too long and never look away The afterlife will empty and walk you home peace It's easy to photograph war harder to show peace Because peace looks like birthday parties picnics at the beach waiting for the bus and another day at work The problem with peace Is that it's nothing special Peace is ordinary Subtle as crossing when the light turns green And the rhythm of your feet becomes part of the pattern of the crosswalk yellow and black yellow and black yellow and black read just uh an excerpt from a uh A mox cistern called something may flower yet, but Hell of a long winter Hurt till least for some hell of a place containing Unequal spacings called thing Ain't what used to be whether a day of labor or uh permanent thusly May finding dusts too difficult Mush cakes refuse to a flower yearnings seeking orders for delightful Immolations yet atmosphere this way and that all statistics inferred But the nature of this follows from that et cetera Exposed but memory banks bursting. Was it an ad or an adversary? pointing to some The great floods were important of molds an old ice box parasites yet pirates were spent in roosts To rule was empty Inviting a trick a thing a loose old and a washed That had been piped lines A leash to an old first flower hint of mojitas Swarmed over it blew crackling Blewed over sums crying may each disguise Latinate in Undations and Placations in Petina's Dwarves. I'm always trying to figure out how to read this. I don't know That's either really encouraging or really discouraging. I haven't figured it out Qr hand is still trying to figure out how to read