Poetry night at the prison

I received a letter from an inmate in Michigan detailing an exclusive poetry reading. No wine and cheese was served. The sign-up sheet in the lobby advertised: "A poet and emerging writer talks about his years behind bars and his life now." Roughly 150 men showed up at the gym on a Thursday night.

My correspondent was surprised by the appearance of "a suit-and-tie guy of some purported stature" from the University of Michigan. He introduced the inmate leader of a Hispanic culture group, whose role, in turn, was to introduce "a panel of persons of higher learning from various departments and community outreach extensions of the University of Michigan." The panel consisted of three females---a black, a white, and a Hispanic; two men were seated at another table. The Hispanic emcee heaped accolades on the featured speaker, who now took the podium.

A spokesman for the Campaign for Youth Justice (an organization committed to ending the practice of incarcerating minors in adult prisons), the guest poet has been written up in USA Today and shared the stage with CIA director Leon Panetta at a college commencement ceremony. U of M was wining and dining him, with Penguin, who was publishing his poetry, picking up the tab.

But my correspondent was getting uncomfortable on his hard wooden bleacher. It wasn't the $2,500 the man got from the federal government upon release from prison, something that the speaker said they were all "entitled" to. It wasn't the three government grants he got for college. It wasn't even so much that he put Howard University "on blast" for having the nerve to have not admitted him with a full scholarship.

My pen pal's discomfort was that "it was all about him, and the remarkable things he had done by the sheer force of his underdog, victim-minded will (with a little help from his friends in the evil system, of course). Q&A time came. Many questions asked were platforms for him to laud himself further. In all of this, other than the single reference to the shattered life of the victim, I never heard any expression of soul-searching or remorse. The whole emphasis was that he had to go to prison for it at age 16, and that it became the basis for his book of poetry and hence his success.

"So I raised my hand," my correspondent continued, "and asked . . . given the number of times that the word 'outreach' had been used that night: 'So what kind of outreach to the family or loved ones of your victim have you done before or since leaving prison---you know, by way of seeking forgiveness, apologizing, amends-making?'

"For the first time of the night his demeanor became caustic. He said, 'They don't do that kind of thing!' I said, 'I'm not talking about "they," I mean you. What have you done?' He replied, 'Why should I have to apologize? I'm a victim too.'

"From there he went into the longest, most convoluted dance of the night. . . . When he finally finished, the crowd broke into a sustained applause. It made no sense. . . . When the clapping stopped and someone else started asking something, I got up and took the long walk across the gym floor out of there. There was nothing more to say."

To hear commentaries by Andrée Seu, click here.