Inmate Jane Doe
If one is to believe all the reports that the media broadcast or prints, one would think that 99% of all offenders were male. With the exception of a… More
Kentucky’s Shameful Statistics
According to a report from the PEW Charitable Trusts’ Center on the States, Kentucky’s prison population increased in 2007 by 12%—nearly double the rate of any other state in… More
Voice of an Unheard Nation
On the eve of November 4, 2008, the entire world rejoiced in Barack Obama being elected the 44th President of the United States of America. The land of the… More
Nature for the Nature Deprived
For those of us incarcerated persons who were avid outdoorsmen in our former lives, being locked-up is especially irksome. It’s not that I miss it; it is almost like… More
Me and My Dreams, Part 1Me and My Dreams, Part 1
Saturday, December 22, 2007The night I got to Singapore my dreams occurred again. It had been a while since I had had these dreams while I was in Burma.I… More
Two-Tongued Tale
Some years ago, I began hearing voices, my own to be precise. It started with a scream. No, I’m not delusional. This is how it happened. Having had a… More
On Title and Talk
In translating Robert Musil’s The Man without Qualities, Sophie Wilkins and I had great trouble finding equivalents for the infinitely subtle and nuanced gradations of title and talk in… More
Revisiting the Racial Mountain
In “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,” Langston Hughes’s famous essay of 1926, Hughes describes his disappointment with a statement made by “one of the most promising of the… More
Looking for Black Literature?
I first understood what people meant when they spoke of intangible white privilege when I realized that I read differently than other people. Literature had often asked me to… More