2020
First Published
4.09
Average Rating
104
Number of Pages
Part of Series
"Forgive state poet #289-128 / for not scribbling illusions / of trickery as if timeless hell / could be captured by stanzas / alliteration or slant rhyme," remarks the speaker, Maryland Department of Corrections prisoner {#289-128}, early in this haunting collection. Three sections-{#289-128} Property of the State, {#289-128} Poet-in-Residence (Cell 23), and {#289-128} Poet in New York-frame the countless ways in which the narrator's body and life are socially and legally rendered by the state even as the act of poetry helps him reclaim an identity during imprisonment. These poems address the prison industrial complex, the carceral state, the criminal justice system, racism, violence, love, resilience, hope, and despair while exploring the idea of freedom in a cell. In the tradition of Dennis Brutus' Letters to Martha, Wole Soyinka's A Shuttle in the Crypt, and Etheridge Knight's The Essential Etheridge Knight, {#289-128} challenges the language of incarceration-especially the ways in which it reinforces stigmas and stereotypes. Though {#289-128} refuses to be defined as a felon, this collection viscerally details the dehumanizing effects of prison, which linger long after release. It also illuminates the ways in which we all are relegated to cells or boundaries, whether we want to acknowledge it or not.
Avg Rating
4.09
Number of Ratings
32
5 STARS
44%
4 STARS
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3 STARS
22%
2 STARS
6%
1 STARS
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Author
Randall Horton
Author · 5 books
Randall Horton is the author of a previous memoir and several books of poetry, including Pitch Dark Anarchy: Poems (TriQuarterly Books, 2013) and The Lingua Franca of Ninth Street. In 2019 he served as poet-in-residence for the Civil Rights Corps in Washington, DC, which is a nonprofit organization dedicated to challenging systemic injustice in the American legal system. The recipient of numerous awards, including the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Award, the Bea González Poetry, a National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship in Poetry, and a Right to Return Fellowship from the Soze Foundation, he currently sits on the Advisory Board of PEN America’s PEN Prison Writing Program. He is a professor of English at the University of New Haven.
