ALT/space

As a teaching artist, as a human being, I would be lying if I did not say I would love to travel the world, to depart to unknown places to infuse my work and to share my art. There are a host of warm hearts in Sweden and France I would treasure meeting. 

But I am an artist confined physically by concrete, steel and electric wires for 35 years. Sometimes teaching artists must stay put by choice or circumstance, yet their hearts, minds and spirits must still travel.  Somewhere I read you don’t have to travel the world to know the hearts of man.  These days I am not even able to travel past the bars of my own cell.

An officer told me today that a pair of geese came up to the art room fence, honking for me this morning, as loud as fog horns – their voices echoing throughout the corridor. But I will not be there today, at least not physically, because we are on lock-down for I do not know how long. There was a riot yesterday, on the big yard, between some black and brown prisoners.

I will not be allowed out of the cage to run my classes, commune with the birds, or breathe in Mother Earth. So, I focus on the teaching artist fellowships I have through the mail. I have only a few correspondence fellowships with students now, because snail mail has become almost obsolete.

Thus, on this lock-down, I’ll mainly read and ponder books.  I’ll cultivate new ideas through my studies, writing and meditation. I’ll give my spirit, heart, mind, and soul fodder to create lessons in the moment, like jazz. The lessons will come out when needed in the future. Tomorrow will bring what it brings.

I’ll paraphrase something Rilke wrote in Letter to a Young Poet: There are endless paths and things inside us – place, stories, poems and songs.  There are memories in our hearts, bodies and souls that we can naturally draw upon to teach art and transcend structures.

Art, I think, must be personal, and at times very personal.  I believe my art must show personal for others to both see inside themselves and feel their own flow, and travel internally to unknown depths.  Everyone has their own way of seeing things, and the arts, by being personal, allow or inspire others to be aware of that fact.

When I ponder Rilke or Langston Hughes they inspire me not to imitate them, but to be more of myself through my own inner travels.

Note from the author: This piece was inspired by Whose Reality? by Malke Rosenfeld, and Linda Bruning’s The Road and its Reality.
 

Spoon Jackson has been in the art world and in prison for over twenty years.  He is an internationally known poet, writer, actor and native flute player.  His poems are collected in Longer Ago and have been featured in films, plays, articles, books and music suites.  He has won four PEN awards.  He is featured in two films by Michael Wenzer, At Night I Fly and Three Poems by Spoon Jackson, which won awards in five countries.  Spoon does not have any fancy degrees; he mentors youth and young at heart from life experiences and realness.  He knows that inspiration is organic.  His newest book By Heart, was co-authored with Judith Tannenbaum and published in 2010.  Contact Spoon at www.realnessnetwork.blogspot.com or www.spoonjackson.com

Also by Spoon Jackson in ALT/space:
Moving Past Hostile Classes
Deadlines
Pockets of Light

In 1988, after I performed Pozzo in Waiting for Godot before international audiences at San Quentin State Prison, my confidence and belief in myself as a poet, artist and human being rose and flowed with inspiration like a thawing creek in spring.  I wanted to share openly and freely whatever gifts I have as an artist and, hopefully, inspire others to share their gifts. 

I became a teacher’s aide.  I ran small writing, reading and acting groups in the 1990’s at Donovan State Prison and at California Men’s Colony Prison.  I remember going into hostile classrooms to recite poetry and Shakespeare and to read my published work.  A lot of the cats in the classrooms did not know what to make of me.  I could see who in the hell do he think he is in some faces.  When I introduced myself and told the class how long I had been in prison, some of their masks fell down.  Some students with hostile gazes turned away from me and kicked it with their friends.  Some maintained their stoic prisoner look throughout the reading, while others ignored me all together.

I kept on reciting, and the teacher in each class would let me know how much he or she enjoyed my presentation.  I answered student and teacher questions at the end of the readings and  I let the classes know how important it is to ask questions.

Back then, in the 90’s, in those hostile classes, I did touch some hearts and souls with each poetry reading.  I kept going back to perform in the classrooms, and more and more of the guys came around to liking my work.  My walk as a teaching artist grew around CMC. I became accepted as a poet and a cool weirdo.  Some cats shared their first poems with me. Sometimes, even now, guys come up to me to tell me how my work inspired them back then. 

Today I have my own creative writing classes. Word about my work and our prisoner-run-and-taught art programs here at New Folsom has gotten around the yard, the prison system, and some outside local communities.  It has also been documented in film, in my book By Heart (co-Authored with Judith Tannenbaum), and in my poetry book Longer Ago.

These days, here at New Folsom, word is that to get into one of my writing classes quickly you must audition.  When I walk into the prison yard, people from all colors, gangs, and backgrounds come up to me.  Some recite a poem, verse or rap.  Some tell me they are writers, poets, singers, rappers, pimps, gangsters or players.  Some express how tight their lyrics and prose are, and that they have written articles, songs, poems and books.  I listen and then I let them know I am open to reading their writing; I tell them to show me their skills, not tell me.  Some people do bring their text to me at the gate where I feed the birds.  Some tell me they have poems and books in their heads and I encourage them to bring it out on paper.

There are long waiting lists for most of our classes.  The turnover rate in the classes due to lockdowns, prison politics, transgressions and transfers can be swift and sad.  Before I even finished my first post for ALT/space [in October 2011] the student highlighted in this piece, Wikiri Ologun, was transferred, and not because he had done anything wrong.  Wikiri had chosen to walk a path of creativity.  He wanted to stay in this environment that is open to the creative process.  He knew that New Folsom is the only spot in the California prison system to have a creative arts program.  Peer pressure and prison politics on other prison yards that have no arts will are intense, and the art can wither without fellowship.  But we keep creating.

Remember

When I walk or fly
out of this place
no one will remember
how the birds came to me
as friends and shared bread

No one will remember
how I planted a garden
of flowers and spices
in a space where growth
is prohibited

No one will remember
the Shakespeare and my poems
I read in hostile classes

I should have known
that once the trees
were all chopped down
like unarmed soldiers
I would be transferred.

©2011 Spoon Jackson

Spoon Jackson has been in the art world and in prison for over twenty years.  He is an internationally known poet, writer, actor and native flute player.  His poems are collected in Longer Ago and have been featured in films, plays, articles, books and music suites.  He has won four PEN awards.  He is featured in two films by Michael Wenzer, At Night I Fly and Three Poems by Spoon Jackson, which won awards in five countries.  Spoon does not have any fancy degrees; he mentors youth and young at heart from life experiences and realness.  He knows that inspiration is organic.  His newest book By Heart, was co-authored with Judith Tannenbaum and published in 2010.  Contact Spoon at www.realnessnetwork.blogspot.com or www.spoonjackson.com

Also by Spoon Jackson in ALT/space:
 Deadlines
Pockets of Light

Today I prepare and gather my wits, thoughts, and hopefully wisdom to write an article and to teach my poetry class. I have two deadlines. Despite how dense the tension is in the cell block, I must still prepare to go out and run my class. Despite almost getting into a fight with three other prisoners, only moments ago, I must create an article for the Teaching Artist Journal.  I have a deadline at the top of every month.

I prepare my article in the cell as I ponder my poetry lesson while not getting along with my cellie. We have been in the cage together for over seven years. We have never been friends and have gone over a month and a half now without talking. Today our not getting along reached a high point when my cellie and two of his homeboys had words with me, right in front of the cell, as I came out to shower.

I stood my ground and made sure none of the guys circled behind me. I hurled invective back at the main cat throwing insults my way as the tower cop shouted, “What’s the problem?”

The incident died down, and nothing else was said. We all went our separate ways. I went back into the cell with the same cellie.

Silence inside the cell again became my mantra and way of being. Otherwise, I would have been consumed in darkness, on a dark road to the hole.

I use the energy and tension of today to create art, writing lessons, poetry, prose. Today I must transform the stress into an article about the importance of meeting a deadline. I’ll turn the core of today’s tension into a class lesson and discussion to write from. I’ll continue to run my class even though I am like a mountain climber going up the steepest part of Mount Everest.

I’ll speak on voice, on using whatever feeling or vibe you are in as the edge, or driving power, behind your poetry reading. Today I’ll do a poetry reading and the power of my reading is anger.

Spoon Jackson has been in the art world and in prison for over twenty years.  He is an internationally known poet, writer, actor and native flute player.  His poems are collected in Longer Ago and have been featured in films, plays, articles, books and music suites.  He has won four PEN awards.  He is featured in two films by Michael Wenzer, At Night I Fly and Three Poems by Spoon Jackson, which won awards in five countries.  Spoon does not have any fancy degrees; he mentors youth and young at heart from life experiences and realness.  He knows that inspiration is organic.  His newest book By Heart, was co-authored with Judith Tannenbaum and published in 2010.  Contact Spoon at www.realnessnetwork.blogspot.com or www.spoonjackson.com

Also by Spoon Jackson in ALT/space:
Pockets of Light

As I headed out of the cell this morning to the art room for my creative writing class, I walked slowly and the families of geese on the roofs of cell blocks seven and eight started to honk and shake their heads as they caught sight of me.  Four geese, already on the ground, waddled over, lowered their necks and heads, mouths open with tongues extended.  This is a traditional geese family greeting, so I did the same thing.

A little over two years ago I helped the parent geese raise their goslings on the yard, many times pulling goslings out of holes they had fallen into.  I am accepted as part of their family.  My geese family knows that each morning I will be there if I can, and that I come in peace to share my bread and fruit with them.  I also play my Native American flute and I watch them watching me, and the soothing sounds of the flute make the geese relaxed.  We sit there together and gaze at the sun.

I am out of the cell at least one to two hours before my class starts.  I cherish that time to greet Mother Earth, the sun, my bird friends, and play the flute in the mornings.  Sometimes I create writing lessons as I sit there in the jazz of the morning.  In one lesson I’ve had my class write prose and poems from the point of view of a bird on the yard, or some other animal or plant friend from their past.  Another time, I’ve had my students write a poem about autumn, or the end of summer.  In my most recent lesson I asked my class to focus on “community” and to create prose and poems from whatever angle they choose to speak.

One of my most dedicated students, Wkiri Ologun, shows in his extraordinary essay and poem on community how our writing space of realness can be framed.  This excerpt is one of the reasons why I am a teaching artist, and why hope continues to flow from behind bars:

My interest, hope and aspirations are kept locked away in my mind in order to protect the most precious thing I have, my humanity, from the corrupting forces around me.

But there is another side of prison that most people aren’t aware of: small pockets of light where likeminded people can come together and for an hour or so, once or twice a week, creating a community that is briefly insulated from the greater prison complex.  This for me has been the arts program here at New Folsom State Prison.  I currently participate in two writing classes (poetry and prose) with a small group of ‘diverse and complex’ inmates unified in the goal of fostering an environment of supportive understanding in order to cultivate craft.

This craft, writing, has been a saving grace for me, allowing me to be able to express on paper what I am not able to in my everyday surroundings.

Those pockets of light, they arrive to my creative writing classes from all the territories on the yard.  They stroll in with each of their cultures written in their walk, dress, tattoos, talk and hair styles; Latin, Native American, Asians, white, and African.  There is no other place in the prison where these men gather as one community, one humanity, and one group of writers who sit, write and converse together.

They are writers creating text they can humbly, proudly, and heartfully send home to their mom or dad, their sisters or brothers, their sons or daughters or their wives or girlfriends.  More than one student has told me how much their family and friends have loved an essay or a poem written in one of our writing sessions.

We greet, congress, and then we do our writing.  Nothing needs to be said other than: Gentlemen, it is time to write.

My Community is Safe
Away from the riff-raff and brouhaha that surrounds you; far from the interloper, the agitator, or the way layer.  My community shines with the sterling gleam of serenity; pure like fire with the warmth and comfort of an old friend.

My community nourishes the soul, with the light from above driving away shadows, rich fertile ground for my potential to grow.

My community isn’t quiet; it bustles with the vibrant sounds of life, flowing like a river roaring in my ears.

It drowns out the outside, uplifting my health.  My community is safety; a community of self.

-Wakiri Ologun

Spoon Jackson has been in the art world and in prison for over twenty years.  He is an internationally known poet, writer, actor and native flute player.  His poems are collected in Longer Ago and have been featured in films, plays, articles, books and music suites.  He has won four PEN awards.  He is featured in two films by Michael Wenzer, At Night I Fly and Three Poems by Spoon Jackson, which won awards in five countries.  Spoon does not have any fancy degrees; he mentors youth and young at heart from life experiences and realness.  He knows that inspiration is organic.  His newest book By Heart, was co-authored with Judith Tannenbaum and published in 2010.  Contact Spoon at www.realnessnetwork.blogspot.com or www.spoonjackson.com