{"id":428947,"date":"2018-06-03T00:47:35","date_gmt":"2018-06-03T00:47:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/essaypaper.org\/writing-saved-my-life-juvenile\/"},"modified":"2018-10-24T09:16:55","modified_gmt":"2018-10-24T09:16:55","slug":"writing-saved-my-life-juvenile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/writing-saved-my-life-juvenile\/","title":{"rendered":"Writing saved my life juvenile"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t\t\t \"Order\n\t\t<\/div>\n
\"Writing<\/div>\n

Most of the poets who submitted to the Words Unlocked contest are between the ages of 14 to 18.<\/p>\n

Richard Ross\/Courtesy of CEEAS<\/p>\n

The way Jimmy Santiago Baca tells it, poetry saved his life \u2014 but he\u2019s not speaking in hyperbole. Long before the poet won an American Book Award, Baca was in prison on a drug conviction, where he was facing down a prison-yard fight with another inmate.<\/p>\n

Baca sought padding however he could get it.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I got a bunch of tape and a bunch of books on the library cart and strapped them around my stomach,\u201d he recalls, \u201cand when this guy pulled out his shank, I was like, wow, this ain\u2019t just a fight \u2014 this guy wants to kill me.\u201d<\/p>\n

The guy he was fighting connected on a few swipes, he says, but each time, the books \u2014 and one big one, in particular \u2014 took the blow.<\/p>\n

\u201cHad the book not been there, I would have been dead; it would\u2019ve cut all the way to the tailbone. When i went back to my cell, I looked at this one book where he had gouged it about an inch deep. And it was a thick anthology of Romantic poets.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jimmy Santiago Baca\u2019s latest book is Singing at the Gates. Baca, who was illiterate when he entered prison in the \u201970s, won the Before Columbus Foundation\u2019s American Book Award in 1988. Esai Baca\/Courtesy of Jimmy Santiago Baca<\/b>hide caption<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

Esai Baca\/Courtesy of Jimmy Santiago Baca<\/p>\n

Jimmy Santiago Baca\u2019s latest book is Singing at the Gates. Baca, who was illiterate when he entered prison in the \u201970s, won the Before Columbus Foundation\u2019s American Book Award in 1988.<\/p>\n

\"Low<\/div>\n

Esai Baca\/Courtesy of Jimmy Santiago Baca<\/p>\n

William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley \u2014 \u201cI thought, \u2018Wow, you guys saved my life!\u2019 \u201c<\/p>\n

\"Writing<\/div>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s when I sat down on the cot in my cell and started looking at this book that saved my life and realized that these poets had in a very real, real way saved me,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd when I began to read the words, I was astounded by their beauty and eloquence, and how the arrangement of words made me happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no coincidence, then, that these days \u2014 decades after that prison term \u2014 Baca serves as the final judge in a contest designed to encourage some of the country\u2019s youngest prisoners to turn to poetry themselves. He hopes poetry, that vessel of a million meanings that saved his own life, may do the same for them.<\/p>\n

Words Unlocked \u2014 an annual poetry curriculum and competition launched in 2013 by the Center for Educational Excellence in Alternative Settings \u2014 draws submissions from students in juvenile correctional centers across the country. Poets in facilities from Alaska to Florida have sent in their work this year, according to CEEAS Director David Domenici, and the number of submissions has reached 1,000 and counting.<\/p>\n

Listen To The Poems<\/h3>\n

\u201cYoung Boy,\u201d from Beaumont Youth Correctional Center, outside Richmond, Va.<\/h2>\n

Embed<\/b> iframe src=\u201dhttps:\/\/npr.org\/player\/embed\/476205460\/476309310\u2033 width=\u201d100%\u201d height=\u201d290\u2033 frameborder=\u201d0\u2033 scrolling=\u201dno\u201d title=\u201dNPR embedded audio player\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

Excerpt from \u201cMy Life,\u201d from Logansport Correctional Facility, Logansport, Ind.<\/h2>\n

Embed<\/b> iframe src=\u201dhttps:\/\/npr.org\/player\/embed\/476205460\/476309338\u2033 width=\u201d100%\u201d height=\u201d290\u2033 frameborder=\u201d0\u2033 scrolling=\u201dno\u201d title=\u201dNPR embedded audio player\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

\"Writing<\/div>\n

\u201cLove Poem,\u201d from Logansport Juvenile Correctional Facility, Logansport, Ind.<\/h2>\n

Embed<\/b> iframe src=\u201dhttps:\/\/npr.org\/player\/embed\/476205460\/476308983\u2033 width=\u201d100%\u201d height=\u201d290\u2033 frameborder=\u201d0\u2033 scrolling=\u201dno\u201d title=\u201dNPR embedded audio player\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

Baca hasn\u2019t gotten a look at this year\u2019s poems yet; he won\u2019t make his selection until a crew of other judges, led by Christy Sampson-Kelly, first whittle that number to just 10 or 15 finalists. But this isn\u2019t his first experience with the contest. He judged last year\u2019s crop, as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year, when Christy sent me the submissions, I was just blown away by the high standards of the writing, and by the depth of emotion that was expressed in the poems,\u201d he says. \u201cYou would think that they were all the spawn children of Whitman or something!\u201d<\/p>\n

Though this year\u2019s contest hasn\u2019t been decided yet, several of the young poets did record their entries for All Things Considered. And while NPR does not have permission to use their names, their voices give life to the words they\u2019ve put to paper \u2014 which you can listen to via the audio links on this post.<\/p>\n

Baca believes these poems will serve them well on the outside.<\/p>\n

\u201cLiteracy is probably the foremost resource that they need to become successful human beings. To be able to deal with sorrow, joy, loneliness and isolation, the first step is that you have to be able to put your feelings into words \u2014 and you have to share those words with people,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you can write this out and give it to society, it\u2019s going to allow them to take the blinders off and see what\u2019s really going on with you in your life. They\u2019re going to begin to understand what\u2019s really going on in your heart. So let\u2019s give them this gift.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that gift, like Baca\u2019s story, may be more than a metaphor. The poets recognized by the contest will be included in an anthology of their own \u2014 not unlike that poetry anthology that Baca says saved him.<\/p>\n