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NEWS & LETTERS, April 2004Writings from women prisonersCouldn’t Keep It to Myself: Testimonies from Our Imprisoned Sisters by Wally Lamb and the Women of York Correctional Institution, ReganBooks, 2003 Wally Lamb has done a real service to women in prison in holding writing workshops, in giving the women inside the encouragement and skill to tell about their lives. He has done a real service to everyone inside and out by publishing this collection of their writings. Prison is meant to isolate the prisoners, to cut them off from society. The current political climate demonizes "criminals," blames all of society’s ills on crime. This book gives a reader an inside look at the making of "criminals." And, not surprisingly, the criminals turn out to be not that much different. They are human. Most of their lives have been hard. Most have been abused as children. Most were poor. What the writing workshop helped them do, is to speak of who they are, what they make of their lives. Each story truly is a work of art, a "good read," a view into another life. Universally the women speak of what writing meant to them. Michelle Jessamy says, "The prison environment causes you to shut down and distrust other people, but writing has the opposite effect. By exploring my past through autobiographical fiction and sharing it with others, I am learning how to come to terms with the ‘whys’ of my past actions and how to release my spirit from its prison." This sentiment is echoed by all the writers in the book. As the editor of The Fire Inside, the newsletter of the California Coalition for Women Prisoners, I know how powerful women’s stories from within prison can be. I edited and printed many of them myself. I love the eloquence these women developed as well as the impact of their stories told so well. All growth and development presented in the book is confined to the individual women learning how to function in this society, whether in or out of prison. The important question raised by each story is only implicit: why does society keep reproducing the poverty, racism, sexual and physical abuse these women experienced very early in their lives? They write of their childhoods. While it makes for a good story, the standpoint of the child is necessarily limited to facing the world she did not make. It is only in the short summaries about the writers that you get a glimpse that now, as they grow, the women also want to help others, want to change more than themselves. I see the act of sharing your story, of speaking of the abuse you suffered, as a very important first step on the road to becoming an activist: for women’s rights in prison, for children’s rights, for a right to have a family, in short for a different world. As the poet Adrienne Rich said: "she would recognize that poetry isn't revolution but a way of knowing why it must come." --Urszula Wislanka |
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