Punching the Air

I am particularly touched by this book because until Covid struck in March 2020, the highlight of my week was teaching a writing workshop at Denver Women’s Correctional Facility (DWCF). Poetry in prison showed me the power of art. For the two hours we sat together, the women and I both entered a different world, a separate space. I was given the opportunity to see them not merely as the embodiment of their crimes, as they are all too often read, but as the best of themselves – still sacred sparks. In prison, they are referred to by a number. When a guard does call them by their name, it is always their last name. In my class, we all addressed each other by our first names. Not a class went by that I didn’t feel terrible that when they signed the attendance sheet, they always put their numbers before their names. I never seized to find that heartbreaking – a true example of what Amal would call the System, with a capital S.

 We did a variety of writing exercises at DWCF, ranging from poetry to prose, but poetry was definitely the initial way in. There is something about poetry – the variety of forms, perhaps – the way words can be laid out on a page – that is freeing. Some people are scared of poetry in the beginning, concerned that they need to focus on meter and rhyme. But when they are given permission to understand poetry as freedom, poetry as liberation, walls can come tumbling down; you can punch through the air.

 Amal’s poetry in this book depicts how free poetry can be, how much range it can have. Because it does not have to traverse the page – line after line after line (like this essay!) – it is also easy to read, quicker. I had a sense of flying through this book – not because the subject matter was light, but because the poetic form – the layout on the page – made me not want to put it down.

 This leads me to another concept in poetry: the white space of a page. Poets know that that white space, what is not said, is as important as the choice of what black letters are put down. This equality – between the black words on the page, the color -- and the surrounding white space – is especially symbolic in any work of literature tackling race. For too long, the literary canon ignored the contributions of Black authors – segregated them for all intent and purpose. There is certainly a corrective to this happening now, and Good Trouble For Kids was established to a part of this “desegregation of literature” from the earliest ages on up. (I love that term, which I just heard in a Times virtual discussion of James Baldwin’s novel Go Tell It On the Mountain, led by author Ayana Mathis). I had the great privilege of being introduced to Black American literature by some wonderful white middle school and high school teachers (I did not have a single Black teacher in schools that were at least 50% Black). I continued to pursue the study of Black American literature in college and graduate school, where I was finally taught by a Black professor. The fact that in 13 years of schooling I had only one Black teacher speaks volumes. I very much hope this is not the case for your kids – white and Black. 

Jarvis Jay Masters wrote that poem in 1992 in California State Prison, San Quentin, CA. He has been there on death row since 1990. You can read more about Jarvis Jay Masters’ case here. I also recommend reading his book Finding Freedom: Writings From Death Row, which includes an introduction by a woman who has been writing with him for many years. The exercises she describes doing with him are very similar to those I have done in my bibliotherapy practice: 10 minute free-writes, or timed writing based on a short prompt. I often bring in a short poem, and after reading it, set a timer, and have people respond to the poem with their own (no restrictions on form). It is a great way to introduce kids to the power of using their writing voice.

Yusef Salaam, the co-author of Punching the Air, has his own incredibly intense story of being wrongfully imprisoned. To learn more about him, you can watch Ken Burns’ documentary The Central Park Five, and the Netflix series by Ava DuVernay, When They See Us. This article in the NYT Magazine from May 2019, includes interviews with both the exonerated men and the actors cast to play them in their youth. Punching the Air, co-written with Ibi Zoboi, like many of the other books I’ve cited, speaks to the freedom gained through art and poetry, and the power of finding one’s voice, even behind walls.

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