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the housing area remembered to announce it;
2) IF the women were there and not a) in court
b) in solitary c) in another part of the prison
d) watching television e) sleeping and/or
drugged f) transferred to another floor g) trans-
ferred to another prison h) out on bail (good
news); 3) IF the officer on hall duty okayed the
passes; 4) IF the warden had not scheduled
something else in your classroom (usually a
course in etiquette); 5) IF there was no “contra-
band,” i.e., spiral notebooks (the wire is a
potential weapon), chewing gum (jams locks),
tweezers, or snap-top pens (another weapon—
only ball points or pencils allowed).

Somehow, the class took place and thrived.
Visitors came to read and comment on student
work: poets Mae Jackson, Daniela Gioseffi,
Daniel Halpern, Audre Lorde. For a long time,
everyone learned. Information was taken in,
absorbed —classes were spent writing and re-
writing, letting off steam.

Almost four years later, most of the women
from the old class had been transferred or freed
(detention women often spend two years wait-
ing for trial), but emphasis was still placed on
“getting along.” We all stressed writing as craft.
Classes were run as any outside workshop would
be, except no one ever published anything.

The poetry class at this time was full of
women who were considered potential security
threats—in other words, intelligent, outspoken,
and funny. Some were “controversial” cases:
Juanita Reedy, about to have her first child
behind bars; Carole Ramer, who had been
busted with Abbie Hoffman and who had a lot
to say about everything; Gloria Jensen, whose
imagination was like a vaudeville show; Assata
Shakur/Joanne Chesimard —alleged leader of
the Black Liberation Army, brilliant and tal-
ented, with a Cool-Hand Luke aura of insou-
ciance, compassion, and tenacity. (Assata was
considered so dangerous that the prison re-
quired her to have a continual guard-escort.)
These women were all good writers. They had
learned craft and practiced it—and wanted
more. They wanted to go further than “thera-
peutic” writing or workshop poems. They were
writing dynamite.

After four years, there was a huge pile of
handwritten poems, Fannie’s log with the names
of every woman who had come to class, some
incredible memories, and that was all. We went
to the prison week after week and no one ever
saw or heard what the women wrote: the voices
were never heard outside, and on the inside,
only in class. | began to feel that something had
to give—no matter what risks were involved for
the women (if they should decide to publish)—
and for FREE SPACE as a writing program. It was
Catch 22—we were losing either way. At this
stage, the women were denied the natural ful-
fillment of self-expression, which is publication.
If we published their writing, however, we stood

to lose the writing program itself. | began to
fantasize about getting the word out: if people
could only hear some of this stuff, | thought, no
one would ever ask me again about either the
quality of prisoners’ writing or the reasons for
running workshops in prisons. We would have
evidence in writing. Best of all, the women
would have the audience they deserved. | began
to draft a rough script, a framework for some of
the poems.

What happened to Juanita Reedy made up
everybody’s mind about publication. Juanita
went to Elmhurst Hospital to have her child and
was treated so inhumanely that she refused to
let prison doctors touch her upon her return.
She wrote a poem about her experience, which
she developed into a longer “Birth Journal.” She
published it in Majority Report, the feminist
journal. Iri the same issue there was an article
about FREE SPACE and a poem by Carole Ramer.
The issue began to circulate in the prison.

Assata, inspired by Juanita, wrote her own
“Birth Journal” and sent it to a major magazine.
One night in class she read this poem:

Butch

You should have told me

About your dick

Stashed inside your bureau drawer
| woulda believed you

Ya say ya wanna be my daddy
Ya say ya wanna be my daddy
Ya say ya wanna be my daddy

Yeah! Run it! I'm ready!

My mamma warned me about you
She taught me about you

She beat me about you

But | thought you were a man . . .

And | lower my eyes

And | lower my back

And | swivel my hips
And | lighten my voice
And | powder my nose
And | blue up my eyes
And | redden my cheeks
And | jump when you call
And | cook and I knit

And | clean and | sew

And itisall so cozy

You lying in my arms

(If I am not being too forward,
too unladylike)

But who will know, anyway,
That you were in my arms
Not me in yours