What She Knows
She gathers an empty bottle washed / ashore and tosses it far to sea. / It sinks, fills, becomes ocean, / I see through ages—it settles / by a… More
Kite to Kierkegaard
But there is no wisdom / That needs to be shouted / Whispering it blisters / A capriccio in braille. More
The Destitute
The / ceiling hovers like a heavy mist, / dark and putrid, thick and barbed, / chocking any head held high. More
Chessman’s Lunch
I poke at my salad, / sip water from a plastic cup / my corner fiefdom overrun now by strangers / a compromised rook / removed from the board More
Tell Me the Story Again About the Frogs, and the Seeds
Yes, yes all the plants are dead. / And all the animals bigger than scarab beetles; / but the seeds have been waiting in the ground. / When the… More
Steve Champion, PEN Prison Writing Award Winner, Hunger Strikes in San Quentin
Steve Champion, a prize-winning writer in the PEN Prison Writing contest, has been on hunger strike in the Adjustment Center (solitary confinement) of San Quentin's death row since October… More
Bleak Housing & Black Americans
The United States seems not merely to tolerate but actually to revel in inflicting barbaric human degradation upon prisoners—not just for months or years, but for decades and lifetimes... More
Planted in Concrete
I stood and stared at the vent on the wall above the toilet in my cell, holding a ripped piece of my sheet in my hand. I knew the… More
The Purple Horizon: A Short Story about Dying
They asked me about the last time I spoke to the fugitive, that’s what they referred to him as. Not as Elijah, not as my son, just as the… More
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