Every year, hundreds of inmates from around the country submit poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and dramatic works to PEN America’s Prison Writing Contest, one of the few outlets of free expression for the country’s incarcerated population. Manuscripts come to the Prison Writing Program in a variety of forms: Some are handwritten, some are typed, some are written in the margins of legal documents. We are pleased to share here a collection of these winning works.
On November 28, PEN America will celebrate the winners of this year’s contest with a live reading, Breakout: Voices from the Inside. Participants including 2016 PEN/Bellwether Award-winner Lisa Ko and 2010 National Book Award-winner Terrance Hayes will read from the prize-winning manuscripts.
Poetry
This is Where
I’m from where silence is normal and / punitive. / Hugs are warm and forced Catholicism still / weighs heavy on my mother’s shoulders. / At 73—the burden has lightened. More…
I Should’ve Taken a Right Turn at Albuquerque
I am haunted by the question of whether / I would want a pill to make me sleep or a chance / to break free. Every time I wish for . . . More…
Glimpse: Year 26, 2016
There’s a lot of gray / in what’s left of my hair— / my George Jefferson tonsure / monks somewhere still wear / … / Styling changes I spied from numerous cells, / prisons, homey. Not jail… More…
Run Chile Run
I don’t like this place / Locks on the cabinets / And cable cords strapped around da refrigerator’s waist / She doesn’t like my face / Even, when I’m… More…
Fiction
Of Arrestable Professions
In fact, it was not until 2026 that the man’s talents were finally recognized, said re-evaluation ultimately prompted by the downfall of cable television… More…
Essay
House of the Interpreter
Moyet, our interpreter, quietly translates to him what is being said, unconsciously keeping his hand to his throat, with steady eyes focusing on the dead girls. More…
The Psychiatrist’s Visiting Interns
A mood disorder cannot hold blame, cannot be held responsible. The choices I made were the choices of the person I was in that time. More…
Spinning the Yard: Social Implications of Inmates in the Hamster’s Cage
Spinning the yard is walking around the yard either clockwise or counterclockwise. Most inmates spin the yard in order to find a sense of self and belonging. More…
Wounded For My Own Transgressions
Now I’m back in prison. The nurses are treating me more like a medical monkey than a medical miracle. The “administration” and the like all want to see the inmate who donated his kidney. More…
Memoir
How to Kill Someone
You had no knowledge of receiving homes, group homes, incarceration, life on the streets, or the State as anything other than a beneficent social structure. I know because you thought I was normal. Like you. More…
Double Secret Probation: The Two-Week Paper Blog
I have 73 weeks left of prison, and if I pass the two-week probation period, I plan to ride it out here, even though the copier frightens me. More…
600 Days of Silence
What I most like to talk about with Wilson is music. He has an extensive knowledge about all genres. I enjoy these conversations the most because they lift my spirits more than any other. More…
Drama
Foreign Lands: A Slice of Seg
The prisoner in Cell 32 is intermittently tapping on his window with something hard enough that the sound fills the pod. He yells at random intervals, opening the play with “There’s a bird in my cell!” More…
Vader’s Redemption
You know what I liked about that movie? More than the first one? It wasn’t the big reveal—but it was—big! It was the fact that Luke wasn’t mad that Vader was his father. He was mad, because he knew, he might turn out just like him. Like dark overlord, like son, right? More…
The Moronic Inferno: Snoring Toward Bethlehem
William is once more snoring and Brit is despondent from lack of sleep. He tentatively taps on the bunk above him, but there is no change or response. … More…
