Blog
Filter By:
Advocacy • Analysis • Blog • Commentary • Drama • Essay • Event • Feature • Fiction • Graphic Narrative • Interview • Memoir • News • Obituary • Open Letter • Poetry • Press Release • Profile
Browse By Series:
PEN Poetry Series • Prison Writing • The PEN Ten Interviews • Illustrated PEN • Pen Pals • The PEN World
Browse By Email Subscription:
PEN America News • Educational Censorship News • Works of Justice
Prison Poets
Everywhere solitary prisoners begin to create the words of the new dialogue.- Octavio Paz, 1949 The poet in him flounders in a morass of lies and distortions about his conquered… More
All Heaven’s Lights
Pete Miller woke up exasperated—he'd almost caught it but like a thief, the scent had escaped with his dream.. The old cowboy rubbed sleep from his rheumy eyes, wondering… More
Dog Flips Burgers
Too politically correct to chase cats / Listens to classical music on PBS / Supports union demands / Burns paw on grill / Swats another fly More
A Taste of Honey
It has been a long time since I had seen or tasted honey. When they shoved a tray of mush under the door one morning, I looked at the… More
In Good Company
IntroductionThere are many different ways to experience life. One of the coldest and loneliest is to be homeless.Imagine yourself standing on the street as the temperature drops. Lights come… More
Escort: Excerpts from a Prison Cell
I threw the book aside, stood up, stretched. I folded the two dust-ridden blankets the state issues and laid them at the foot of the bunk. I had been… More
Recipe For Prison Pruno
Take ten peeled oranges,Jarvis Masters, it is the judgment and sentence of this court,one 8 oz. bowl of fruit cocktail,that the charged information was true,squeeze the fruit into a… More