Law Office Management
May 2, 2015
Poetry Behind Bars
A law school student describes her life-changing experience with children in juvenile hall.
as an adult
But I never lived a childhood
A lil' kid looking for guidance I
could never really find ...
Quick to judge me on my negatives
I've never had no positives
A life full of sadness
You'd drown in all the tears
I've seen ...
He also described watching his mother pick food out of a dumpster, and the day his father left. His peers praised him for eloquently expressing the circumstances many of them could relate to. Through writing about typically taboo subjects in a correctional setting-sexual abuse, feelings of abandonment, and fear-boys who were formerly sworn enemies realized that they had a great deal in common. I have been accused of naiveté when I tell people that I believe poetry can serve as an antidote to the violence permeating the underserved neighborhoods of Los Angeles, as well as a vehicle for transforming hardened gang youth. But I respond to detractors by inviting them to spend a night with my students at Central. It usually only takes the observation of a single class to convince them that the potential for change exists when youth are given the tools to find their voices and know that someone is listening to what they have to say. Samuel told me recently that he believes his final stay at Central was a blessing because it was when he began to write. Slowly, he says, his wounds began to heal, and he was able to envisage a future beyond the streets. When a gang-related fight broke out on his unit, he was instrumental in achieving and maintaining peace. After receiving multiple letters from teachers and staff commenting on his conscientiousness, commitment to self-improvement, and enormous potential, a judge found Samuel to be "fit." He is now college-bound and plans to attend law school, to advocate for young people caught up in the criminal justice system. He also hopes to publish his writing and recently entered a poetry contest. Author James Baldwin said that the role of writers and artists is "to illuminate that darkness, blaze roads through that vast forest, so that we will not lose, in all our doing, sight of its purpose, which is, after all, to make the world a more human dwelling place." Now, when I meet incarcerated youth, I wonder what has been done to them to land them in juvenile hall. The adolescents that I have met in the hall inspired me to change my career trajectory. I now plan on becoming a juvenile public defender, to advocate for the rights of young people like the students in my InsideOUT writing class. I am forever grateful to Samuel and all of my other students for possessing the honesty and courage to share their pain, and opening my eyes to the harsh realities behind the statutes and statistics I studied in law school. Poetry has made their world and mine a more humane dwelling place. Megan Quirk is a student at UCLA School of Law, where she is studying public interest law and policy with a critical race studies specialization.
Donna Mallard
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