Abolitionist Storywork: Making Stories an Instrument of Justice

As I was escorted through the dark gray corridors of the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, Georgia, the corrections officer went to work coloring our perceptions of the incarcerated men we were preparing to meet: “Don’t let them touch you or get too close.” Then, as we continued, he laughed and said, “I don’t know why they think these guys care about poetry.” He clearly did not believe they were capable of meaningful connection, creative expression, or free thought. This was not my first time entering a prison or jail and certainly not my first time hearing correctional staff demean and dehumanize the people in their custody. By the time I entered Fulton County Jail in the summer of 2002, I had been inside facilities in New York City, New York; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Washington, DC; Chicago, Illinois; Los Angeles, California; and New Orleans, Louisiana, but those were all youth facilities. This was my first time leading a workshop for incarcerated men. I was already nervous, and this talk was not helping. As we walked, I started to wonder if he was right. Would these guys really care about poetry? Maybe this was a mistake. By the time we entered the lunch area where the workshop was being held, I was all but holding my breath, preparing myself to see the monsters that the correctional staff had painted images of. The corrections officer unlocked the door, and we entered the cafeteria space designated for our workshop. Sitting quietly around long tables was a group of men who looked like my father, my uncles, my cousins—men in my life who had all spent time in jails and prisons just like this one. I took a deep breath and entered the room. We told them we were there to lead a poetry workshop, and their eyes lit up. Some produced notebooks with poems they had already prepared to share with us today. Through their writing, they expressed remorse, longing, love, and grief; so much grief was expressed in those poems that day. Since that poetry workshop nearly 20 years ago, I have entered countless other facilities to teach and witnessed similar acts to discredit the people in my workshops before I walked into the room. I realize now that those attempts were more about undermining my capacity to teach. If I did not see my students as fully capable of learning and creative thought and expression, if I only saw them the way the correctional staff needed to see them in order to play their role as captors, then the illusion of a right and just criminal justice system might be sustained. Years later, I was running a Saturday arts program for incarcerated girls at Rikers Island in New York. In the classroom, we played theater games that required cooperation, problem solving, and creativity. Two officers looked on from outside the classroom window. One of them was new to our program, and the other had been with us for months and often requested to supervise our program. Sometimes she even joined us in playing games and activities, throwing herself fully into improvised scenes, laughing and cheering loudly as we played silly theater games. Today she stayed outside with her colleague, who gaped in shock to see the room light up with laughter and play. “They look like kids,” the newcomer said. “They are kids,” the female officer replied.