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Henry Daniels III

Henry “Butch” Daniels III (1965- )

Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, I grew up in the Watts section of Los Angeles, California. In 1983, I graduated from North Hollywood High School, attended Compton Community College and California State at Los Angeles, but I was unable to finish due to financial problems. For the next few years, I roamed from pillar to post, coast to coast—in and out of hope—then in 1988 into the web of an unfair trial and the shadowy maze of a Pennsylvania death-row cell, where I wrote my first poem and discovered a flickering flame… and myself.

Articles by Henry Daniels III

Prison and Justice Writing

Wednesday May 4

Appraisal

On the deserted corner of Condemned and Death there stands a neglected rundown theater, paint peeled and cobwebbed, haunted by ghosts performing dead drama, on a dark empty stage. Tattered backdrops rippled in a draft of undiminished silence. Hushed applause echo from the sole seat in the house, where I sit paralyzed in fear, clenching my program, blank yellowing pages.