Poetry from the tower, in prison
There are many reasons a prison inmate might want to attend my poetry class. As the evening librarian at the Suffolk County House of Correction in South Bay, I have gotten used to assuming nothing and being prepared for anything.
Some come for the love of word music; others to ''get off the unit" or to earn ''good time" credit. A young man comes to hone his skills for writing love poems to get girls.
Some have a lot to say, some haven't uttered a word in class in months.
One woman confides that she won't be cured of her addictions until she finds the words to express what she has been through.
''They're all in the dictionary," she tells me. ''I guess I just have to learn how to find them."
She asked not to be identified while she struggles with a substance abuse problem.
For her, this class might be the beginning.
Others come either to forget or to remember an event, a person, or an entire period of life.
''All I got is time" -- this is a phrase I often hear in prison. And large doses of time tend to do strange things to one's memories and to one's inclination to remember. Some people might not even know why they go to the poetry class.
The class for female inmates convenes as usual one Tuesday afternoon on the 11th floor of the prison. This is the ''tower," whose top floors house Boston's female offenders and detainees. From here one has a beautiful view of Boston: from the prison courtyard down below, to the Boston Medical Center, to the old and new structures of the South End across the highway, out to the State House and the soaring towers of the business district in the distance. I can't help but wonder when the prison will be relocated to make way for luxury condos.
It is a happy little classroom. Colorful depictions of outer space adorn the walls -- Jupiter's moons, a chart of the known galaxies, a glimpse at the big bang. The message, I assume, is that it's worthwhile to keep one's eyes trained on the heavens, far away from earthly troubles.
As I sit peering out of the barred window in the tower, the inmates make their way into the classroom. Today the class is composed of seven inmates, most regulars but some new faces as well. They are talking of a shooting in Roxbury that they heard about in the news.
''Did you know him?" one asks. ''No, I don't think so," comes the response, ''but I have to see the picture first."
As the city's murder rate has skyrocketed, the thick wall of prison has added an additional layer of anxiety for inmates who worry about family members, friends, and neighbors on the outside.
In the prison library, the Globe's year-end spread on Boston's homicides complete with photos and captions elicited intense interest. Many inmates know people on the list, both the killers and the killed. Orlando Lomax, 19, counted six friends on the list of victims and recognized a few others by face.
Today, as the class is set to begin, a thick fog has enveloped Boston, creating a ghostly rendition of the cityscape; much of the town is left to the imagination. It is a good day to write poetry.
For security reasons, prison creativity can be tolerated only up to a point. The rules of prison handicraft, for example, are fairly stringent. Manipulating any found or given object is strictly forbidden for fear of ''shanks" -- improvised weapons -- or other hazardous materials.
While prison handicraft is limited, prison word-craft gets much freer rein. That's not to say that choice words to the wrong person won't get one into trouble. But the written word in prison is one of the few forms of creativity that is almost boundless. Writing and reading in prison, I have been told, gives one an approximation of private space, a prerequisite for creativity. In prison, of course, privacy itself is a rare commodity.
We end today's class by looking at a photograph and writing about it. The photo is taken from a series by the photographer Weegee on the theme of city fires.
One photo shows a man running down a fire escape in his skivvies, holding a pair of pants. He wears the hyper-alert look of a man stunned into consciousness and seems amused by his good fortune. Another, which I flip past quickly, shows two women wailing as their family dies in a fire.
The final one: two firefighters clutching a statue of a heaven-gazing angel playing a dulcimer, which they had pulled from a burning church.
I asked the women to consider the fire series but to focus on the photo Weegee captioned ''two firefighters rescuing angel," a print from 1939.
After scribbling for 15 minutes with her shank-proof bendy pen, Joanna Lugo produced this poem on two scraps of paper:
''Pain, Loss, Confusion"
in every mind:
the key is
that not one
should be left
behind.
The strings of life
have been pulled
a thousand times:
loss of family
fresh in mind.
The hurt
the world
receives on every level
it can perceive:
availability
for the lonely.
Structure and stance,
avocation with
chance. Togetherness
with love, an
Angel
sent from above:
saved I was with
Love,
this I keep to love.
She finishes reading the poem just as the correctional officer enters to end the class. The inmates return to the unit.
This month, inmates are being asked to submit their writing to a prison-wide poetry contest. Winners will recite their verses at two poetry readings scheduled for Valentine's Day. I'm planning to dedicate the events to peace on the streets of Boston.
Avi Steinberg, a regular contributor to City Weekly, can be contacted at ciweek@globe.com. 
