© The New York State Literary Center
Everybody makes mistakes in life.
It’s just that some are bigger than others.
What We Want You to Know
By James
What would we like you who is reading this to know or to walk away with? We would like you to realize that it is hard for us. When I say “us” I mean the whole jail, all jails, prisons, detention centers, group homes and everywhere else someone gets locked up. It’s hard because once you’re convicted of a crime it’s like everyone looks at you differently. They look at you as if your skin color was a turquoise green, or as if you had an third eye and were of a different species. We don’t think it should be like that. Just because we’ve committed crimes it doesn’t make us bad people. We just made a mistake in life and as everybody knows nobody’s perfect. By writing this I want to say to you, “Everybody makes mistakes in life; it’s just that some are bigger than others.” I would like you, the audience, to walk away with a series of thoughts. As you read our poems and listen to us, feel our pain and understand where we are coming from.
Youth in Prison
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Breakdown by Gender
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Breakdown by Ethnicity and Gender
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Something’s On Me
Something’s On Me: Sam created this drawing while in the “box.” The day he was released from two months in the box he was asked how he maintained his sanity. He replied, “I drew.”
not going back
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hudson street
Benjamin had never photographed before. He took this photo as part of a NYSLC program for juveniles following their release from a juvenile justice facility. The photo has caption in it that says: “The sign in front of the church on Hudson Avenue is the original Hudson sign. I love it with the whole sky grey and the old sign. To me it says there will always be cloudy days . . .”
the end
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About the New York State Literary Center
Dale Davis founded The New York State Literary Center (NYSLC) in 1979. NYSLC’s first program was to send published writers into public schools to conduct residencies. These successful residencies were the first step and led Davis to further NYSLC’s mission by including visual, media, and theater artists as part of long-term, project-based, interdisciplinary arts projects that addressed real, concrete concerns of students and transformed the writing that went on in school from a solitary, mechanical process into vibrant, interactive communications. Students wrote about their own experiences and concerns, and the projects drew individual student expression into collective publications, videos, CDs, installations, and events to achieve presence. Davis’ belief that all students have strengths and need to be given experience from which they can process content, led to NYSLC’s method with students at the highest risk for educational failure, those young people in residential placement, long term suspension, juvenile justice facilities, and jails. NYSLC’s effective pedagogy builds upon students’ confidence and a sense that what they learn in school is relevant to their lives. NYSLC’s method is to focus on inquiry to discover who the young people are and what is important to them through collaborative art projects that not only improve literacy skills, but also inject a sense of community belonging, give young people power over the narrative of their lives, enable youth to reach out with strong, clear voices on personal and social identity and articulate a compelling vision of how communities and schools can be better places. NYSLC’s mission is to bridge the space between the classroom and the larger community, deepen young people’s understanding of the forces that shape their lives, and help society better understand the needs and concerns of all children. Listen, read and view some of the samples of student work included here. To find out more, visit the NYSLC Web site at http://www.nyslc.org/alcc.htm.
What is Wrong with Us?
By David G.
What is wrong with us? Why do we always sabotage ourselves by coming back to jail over and over again? How come every time I look in the newspaper or ask around, I find out another young person gets enslaved to the system and will never come home, never make anything of himself, or do anything positive. What is wrong with us? Don’t we know the only way to get out of this game is prison or death? And if so, why do we keep playing Russian roulette with our freedom? You see I’m no new mind to the streets. Basically I’ve been there and done that. I’ve been in and out of the system for felonies since I was thirteen. I’ve almost lost every man I have ever respected to the system. I’ve almost been killed three times in the past year. I’ve known cats personally who get out of jail and go back faithfully. This leaves me with the question, what is wrong with us?
Why?
By Malcolm
Why? Even though they told me to visualize success, I can’t see it?
My father was a missing part of me. “Mom where is he”…”I don’t know baby.”
Everyone told me to go to school, but everyone around me was skipping school and watching life pass.
I’ve been thinking, can I be myself and try to achieve my dreams?
I get out, they label me a violent felon, tell me I can’t get a decent job,
tell me I’ll be back.
Ever since I was a kid they said, “Everything will be ok.”
Why did the adults around me lie? I’m 17 a predicate felon!
What about the system that promised not to leave me behind?
They long term suspended me and called my mom and asked her why I didn’t come back?
Sucked into a vacuum of cruel, meaningless morals, why? I know why!
Because since the beginning of time I’ve been labeled a “black” thug, a failure, a disrespectful, baggy, clothed soul.
I’m reaching for the sun yet all my spaceships crash, explode, or don’t even take off.
I’m in a cell for 20 hours a day only let out to eat.
If I show the slightest disagreement they slide my food through a small slit in my door.
23-hour lockdown only let out to shower.
I’m expected to fail so…they’ll be surprised when I succeed.
I’ll keep trying even though they plot and expect my downfall.
I’m all I have,
a hungry searching mammal looking for a place to prosper,
dodging, fighting, ducking the lions that make laws and devour all who don’t obey.
Can I only save myself in this American jungle of gunfire, absent fathers, low expectations
and struggle to climb a forever-falling rope.
Miguel’s writing continues to attract attention from young people and from teachers all over the country.
I Stand Here Before You: Already Here
I Stand Here Before You: When I am Locked in a Cell
I Stand Here Before You: More than this Orange Suit
I Stand Here Before You: Far Away Island
I Stand Here Before You: Not a Child Anymore
Find more information and student expressions at The New York State Literary Center’s Web site at: www.nyslc.org
Permission for duplication, reproduction, or reuse of any of the New York State Literary Center material on McGraw-Hill’s College and Career Website Student Focus on The New York State Literary Center must be obtained from The New York State Literary Center.
