John Corley’s poem, “Kaleidoscope Reprise,” received a second prize in poetry on this yr’s PEN Jail Writing Award for poetry. That poem, together with “Servitude,” a prize-winning essay by Corley, can be revealed within the forthcoming 2024 version of the PEN Jail Writing Awards Anthology.
The Lens is happy to publish “Kaleidoscope Reprise” right here and his essay, “Servitude,” right here.
What’s your writing course of like? When and the place do you get your writing completed?
Writing is my life. Throughout greater than 20 years as a employees author and editor with The Angolite, I’ve revealed nearly 350 legal justice and human curiosity articles and sectionals within the journal alone. I really like the job and am captivated with our publication.
Concepts for tales and poems exterior the job come as they please, with out prior discover or warning, many instances as I’m awaiting sleep to overhaul me on the shut of day. I maintain paper and pen with me always as a result of, like essentially the most dynamic goals, creativity is as wispy as Louisiana mist and dissipates shortly if not seized. I write in my dormitory, the information workplace, on the recreation yard—wherever I could also be when creativity comes calling.
In your poem “Kaleidoscope Reprise,” the speaker of the poem works as an jail lawyer, and describes a collage of characters contained in the jail — some who need his assistance on their instances. Have you ever labored as an inmate counsel? In that case, has that work formed your understanding of jail and the legal authorized system?
Sure, from 1998 till 2004 I used to be assigned by the Authorized Applications Division as inmate counsel substitute, first with the Civil Litigation Group after which with the Closed Cell Restriction (segregation) Group. Previous to that I earned an affiliate’s diploma in paralegal research that gave me a broad overview of American regulation. After I used to be convicted I delved deeply into Louisiana regulation, to find how I wound up with a life sentence and what I might do about it.
My years as counsel right here expanded my data of the mechanics and software of the regulation, and introduced a window into the minds of my shoppers who might or might not have, in my view, deserved the punishment meted to them. I additionally realized that the jail’s inner disciplinary system is much extra considered on paper than in actuality.
“My reminiscence clock-click-click STOPs at 1989” you write. Your reminiscences are “now idealized, stylized, idolized however/ in all probability as a lot manufacturing as actuality,” however you “maintain them alive/so I received’t disappear.” How does your reminiscence change once you go to jail?
Every thing you may have identified your whole life ceases to exist. Freedom turns into a closed chapter, and for the rest of your incarceration, that former life blooms in reminiscences because it was as soon as upon a time.
In my reminiscences, my family members are nonetheless younger and vibrant and the paths I traversed and institutions I frequented stay as they had been solely yesterday. Besides, 35 years have handed.
Family members have moved on, withered, died. The outdated haunts have given option to trendy infrastructure. Expertise I thought-about leading edge is now archaic and out of date. Yesterday there have been no cellphones iand web at the moment, life calls for this stuff. Every thing I knew and cherished terminates at 1989, the yr I fell. In my thoughts I nonetheless reside there, a make-believe individual in a make-believe world.
You describe “the bug” — presumably a reference to COVID-19 — taking on the jail. “Each time we coughed we fell useless/ The virus was all over the place.” Are you able to describe what that point was like for you? Did you get sick? What measures of precaution had been you capable of take to maintain your self protected?
I feel we had been all sick at one time or one other — most of us had been merely asymptomatic. We wore the masks, washed our arms, stored our distance … However the place will you disguise in jail? What nook is immune from the germs our keepers usher in with them? Try the article I wrote for The Atlantic, revealed on-line in April 2023, that describes the pandemic contained in the state penitentiary. The Angolite additionally offered in depth protection.
Covers of the Angolite from the spring and summer season of 2020 (JSTOR).
Via your descriptions and the usage of Kaleidoscope in your title, your poem has some facets of virtually a loopy funhouse. Does the jail usually appear nuts to you? How do you keep sane in that environment?
Jail is unquestionably a nuthouse. A lot of the madness spews from the people who find themselves incarcerated solely by their very own incompetence, whose state-sanctioned dominion can be laughable if it weren’t so insulting. The important thing to self-preservation is, By no means sweat the small stuff, and keep in mind it’s all small stuff.
As you describe, work in some methods appears central to jail life. However a lot of it, particularly the fieldwork, is compelled labor. Inform us how the pecking order works — what jobs are sought-after and that are essentially the most dreaded?
Individuals get in the place they slot in. Few need to work the fields, however for some power miscreants discipline work has develop into second nature. Years in the past, jobs like The Angolite and inmate counsel substitute had been the highest-paying at 20¢/hr., most revered and coveted occupations. Now, social and vocational mentors, signal language interpreters, certified paralegals—anybody with a certification—all make as much as a greenback an hour. Massive cash within the pen.
Angolite employees are on name 24/7 and spend roughly 16 hours a day within the workplace writing, researching, designing, and laying out the journal. Staffers traverse the penitentiary nearly every single day, together with weekends and holidays. There are solely three who do the leg work and put all of it collectively, as a result of journalists make the identical 20¢/hr. ($8/wk.) they made 30 years in the past, and that received’t even purchase a pound of floor espresso.
Lately, it’s not a lot concerning the job, it’s concerning the cash. (See, “The thirteenth Exception,” The Angolite, Nov./Dec. 2023)
What does it imply to you to be a PEN award winner?
It’s an honor. I’ve been privileged to win 5 PEN awards for poetry, fiction, drama, and essay writing since 2006. Greater than another, the PEN group provides voice to the unvoiced, and notifies the world that incarcerated individuals have redeeming worth via the written phrase. I really like PEN and its great employees who conjures up us all.
The Angolite has constructed a powerful status. Inform us what tales you’re most happy with below your management?
All of them. Each article or blurb, whether or not I writer it or not, has my editorial fingers throughout it, and I’m humbled to fulfill the large accountability to our readers. I’m a fan of historic articles, and unique reporting eclipses spinoff reporting, however I’m happy with every part we produce. Each article is essential, has one thing to say, shines a lightweight on jail, legal justice, or the human situation.
In 2019, our exterior researchers and I produced a 5-part historical past of the Angola media, the one one in every of its sort. I’ve written histories of musical live shows right here, the loss of life penalty in Louisiana, and extra. Previous to COVID, I pitched a book-length assortment of historic articles beforehand revealed in The Angolite to DOC underlings, however acquired solely the chilly shoulder in response.
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