You count the seconds, minutes, and hours
I count the days, years, and decades
Time is our mutual interest, perspective our disagreement
      — Phillip Luna

The PonyXpress turns one on the first of July. The practice of writing these weekly dispatches has punctuated my weeks with panic (shit, it’s Thursday) and relief (post scheduled!) To keep the journal filled, we schedule weekly face-to-face workshops at Oregon State Penitentiary and monthly workshops at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility (in both medium and minimum) and Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution in Pendleton. The scaffolding of our calendar makes us conscious of how folks inside experience time differently than we do. There are the logistics of everyday life: line movements to chow or the yard, being in the correct place for count multiple times in the day, loss of control as to when the cell door opens. In Finding My Place, Ryan Nguyen walks us through his weekly routine of showering and picking up laundry at Oregon State Penitentiary. He writes exactingly as he recounts every movement and stopping place as he travels from his cell through the prison.

Carolyn Stickley brings eighty years of wisdom to our workshop at Coffee Creek. With a few more years on her sentence, Carolyn anticipates her return to a soft bed and the company of her children, grandchildren, and now great-grandchildren. Affectionately known as Granny on the block, Carolyn has been a prolific contributor this year. Her piece connects ideas of self-repair and forming trusting relationships with the loose grains of sand collected in an hourglass. “Think about the speed of sifting sand in your personal time frame. Let your life lightly dance on the edges of time. It all begins and ends in your mind.”

Phillip Luna’s A Letter to My Watch addresses the disagreement between the watch and the user. The clock’s hand counts hours and minutes, while this man’s counts in days, months, decades. The daily tool paces the writer who struggles with the ocean of time that separates him from his family and home: “You remind me to have faith and determination/To face the waters honestly and with steady hands.” Philip can be reserved at the writer’s table at Eastern Oregon and each visit we come to know a little more about him. This group (pictured above) has been a dedicated crew this year. Culture differs in each of the prisons. Since Covid, EO has had staffing shortages which makes it difficult to run extra programming. We owe a debt to Leslie Halbert, a tireless advocate for our project. She stays until eight in the evening to not only let us into the institution, but to join us in writing alongside the men. She shares her personal time and her own voice to help the Pendleton program grow.

We end with AH’s It Rode. The success of the Pony lands squarely on the shoulders of our writers who share themselves, their failures, their flaws, their wishes and their joys with us. We speak as one when we thank you for taking the time to read the PonyXpress. | TDS

I am grateful for your time
An honest face and steady hands
You are faithful and determined

You count the seconds, minutes, and hours
I count the days, years, and decades
Time is our mutual interest, perspective our disagreement

Sometimes we count too quickly
And time is just a handful of water
Spilling between my fingers

Sometimes we count too slowly
And time is an ocean without a surface
Vast and boundless, full yet empty

When I am drowning in the ocean,
In the years that become decades
You remind of your perspective
To count in hours that were once minutes

With perspective, water can be held
In my hand it's easily pushed aside
And by doing so I can swim

You remind me to have faith and determination
To face the waters honestly and with steady hands
That time is something to be grateful for | PL

PHILLIP LUNA WAS BORN IN CALIFORNIA; HE IS OF HISPANIC AND WHITE HERITAGE. HE IS THE EDITOR OF THE EASTERN OREGON CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION’S NEWSLETTER, “THE ECHO.”

Prison is not the realistic place to make forever friends. As evidenced by domestic partnerships and marriages formed here that have not lasted the years. Friendship knows likes, trusts, supports with warm comforting sympathy while it allows you to be your own person. We all have been broken and need to resolve ourselves first, which is a long journey. Fellowship with our neighbors is essential in prison to grow. People joke that “God isn’t finished with me yet” – I’ve seen it on bumper stickers.  Most jokes or things said in jest have an element of truth … we need to listen.

Sand is a loose granular material and the sand in an hourglass can be the moments of a lifetime or the short time piece for playing a board game. I sift through people like sand to find compatibility and a reliable connection.

How firm a foundation, Hebrews 13:5 – for himself said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” Singing oh, what needless pain we bear.  All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer!  The Lord and I are fixing me together to restore me to the joy of salvation with a willing spirit. 

Attraction shows that whatever you focus on, you’re going to attract more of it into your life. Think about the speed of sifting sand in your personal time frame. Let your life lightly dance on the edges of time. It all begins and ends in your mind.

Making sandcastles is a favorite activity of mine, whether it is in real time at the beach or in my mindfulness mind. The beauty and then the gentle waves wash it away. Over and over we can recreate a new sandcastle in flow with our minds and design. Just like the sandcastle people cannot hurt you – wash them away and begin building again. | CS

CAROLYN STICKLEY WAS BORN IN 1948 IN WASHINGTON DC & GREW UP IN A NEIGHBORHOOD THERE. AN EDUCATOR, CAROLYN HAS FOUND WRITING TO BE ONE OF HER CREATIVE OUTLETS.

It rode into my
nightmare on a steed called crime.

A night to stand beside
me in this, my darkest time.

I know not a way to repay
the night.

All I have to offer him
is that which he has saved.

MY LIFE. |  AH

AH PARTICIPATED IN THE PONYXPRESS WORKSHOP AT POWDER RIVER IN BAKER CITY, OR.

“Shower!”

My eyes snap open. I’m awake. It’s 7:45am, I’ve overslept. Jumping down I hope to avoid collision with my cellmate whose whereabouts (or actual presence) I’m completely ignorant. He’s gone. I dress quickly and frantically conjure a mental list of things I will require state-provided medically approved shampoo. Check. Last Christmas exclusive store-bought bodywash. Check. Towel, shower shoes, socks, shoes, and I’m out the cell, just as the she-guard yells, “Closing!” and my door slams shut. It’s violence and loudness irritate me.

I stumble down the stairs of my concrete housing unit through the HVAC-ed warmth of the control floor lobby, down a steep grip-taped ramp past now absolute “NO SMOKING” signs, and into a bustle of men, shoulder-to-shoulder.

I realize that I’m just here to pick up clothes, because we have yard later and I plan on showering after I exercise. I wait in line until it’s my turn then I yell my jean size to a clothing room orderly and he tosses me a faded pair with oil stains on the front that looks like something on the streets would pay extra for. I move forward to the next station. I pick through a pile of freshly laundered shirts, pull out five of the nicest… three for me and two for my cellie to last us a few days…and I move forward.

I only need an area to fold these shirts, so I’m liberal with selecting a bench to use. I see an area slightly past where I’d normally set up. I set my things down after a minute. A man of a different complexion yells, “Hey! You in my spot?” I frown up at his actual spot a few seats away, from the bench of mine, then back at him, “…uhm, your spot?”

“Yeah… these brothers’ spots.”

“We share them with you.”

“We… as in … who? And share what?”

“Asians. This area.”

“Did you just get here?” He must’ve just got here. “I’ve been here for years. Ask any of your homies, we share shower with y’all.” (I probably wouldn’t have set up shop here this deep past the borders, if I was planning on showering.)

“Oh, alright, just I hadn’t ever seen any Asians around here.”

“That’s because there’s not many of us here at all.”

I tell him, “Yea, we share some of the tables in the Chow Hall with y’all, too.

“Oh, alright. Yea, you good.”

I’m done folding my laundry and I leave the spot. Ten steps later I pass two Afroed-Islanders and a slick-haired Cambodian getting from under the same shower spots that I normally would have waited to use.

A week later.

Half of the shower at OSP were shut down for maintenance. This meant that all those people who used them had to either find a way to share or go without, the latter option not one. Tensions were high the first day with six guards patrolling the shower hall instead of the usual two. Amazingly all my fellow gentlemen found a way to coexist and cohabitate during this ordeal with only one inmate losing his temper … at himself. | RNN

BORN IN TACOMA, WASHINGTON TOA VIETHAMESE FATHER AND A CHINESE MOTHER, RYAN NAM NGUYAN DEVELOPED AN APTITUDE FOR PROSAIC WRITING AT AN EARLY AGE. SEEKING TO ENLIGHTEN READERS OF HIS UNIQUE EXPERIENCES AS AN ASIAN-AMERICAN, HE DELIGHTS THEM WITH HIS STRAIGHT FORWARD AND CANDID STYLE.

Our PonyXpress workshop sessions vary from week to week with different activities and writing prompts. Our most successful sessions include reading and responding to a poem. This spring, I brought Layli Long Soldier’s book, Whereas to read her poem “38.“ After we listened to the poem, we passed the book around the circle to look at the pages. In the conversation that ensued, we observed how the poems are structured on the page; how she constructs and deconstructs meaning; her comfort in using grammar to meet her needs as a writer; and how marks (like arrows and boxes) are part of the text. We let our writers inspired by her work try their hands at writing a poem inspired by some aspect of Whereas.

Regular readers will recognize how Nolan James Briden’s voice and his interest in structure met the challenge in “Shots Fired! Shots Fired! Indins Enduring!” The programming of Substack doesn’t accommodate his structure, so we have attached a PDF to show how he uses the page.

Historic in time, present in time, in-time
Over
Time
Never stops as
Authoritarian rules reign in the name of: Industry.
Fragmented sentences rain

R. Miranda’s “X Marks the Spot” moves through personal history, opening and closing ideas around mark making on walls, on skin, the lines we draw. We are pulled through with ~ the mark used in one of the languages that runs through his veins.

Marking line ~  leaving lines ~ re•moving lines?
Straight lines becoming bent lines
Connections connecting
Oblique words arching ~ over arching
Becoming full circles
Concentric circles of concern; circles of influence; circles of power!

As we mark summer solstice and tonight’s full moon, we include J. Hunter’s “Shadow’s Light.” We are excited to have him join us this year and look forward to publishing the stack of writing he has submitted in the coming months. | TDS

Just giving up,
The theory of luck,
For what?
Another overly shadowed, and even darker night …
Always closing eyes & consistently destroying minds
Manipulated through fright,
Living on the cliff’s rocky heights,
Understanding new & eternal laws,
Yet, none in sight …
For without having seen the new sun rise,
Cresting treetops,
All forever the wise …
Sliding out of the full moon’s shine,
Creating earth’s energy & our eternal flow …
Which shows high tides,
Only reason for the fight,
Now to continue on home,
Honoring the true words spoke,
Amongst the fire & rock,
Not lost …
This game we’ve called life,
No longer a coin toss. | JH

J HUNTER IS A MEMBER OF THE PONYXPRESS WRITING GROUP AT OREGON STATE PENITENTIARY.

Such a poser…
Such a poser!
Is anything real?
Leaving -  making -  re•moving
Marks – scars
And what about tats?

Marking line ~  leaving lines ~ re•moving lines?
Straight lines becoming bent lines
Connections connecting
Oblique words arching ~ over arching
Becoming full circles
Concentric circles of concern; circles of influence; circles of power!

I remember as a child:
Father talking to a realtor reluctant to rent to
A “migrant” family with children.
Her biggest concern?..
Children who marked up the walls with drawings!
The whitebread society, with homogenized mentality,
Dictating that “normal” children did not!
Desecration ~ assimilation ~ your choice.
I wonder what history would look like if great-grandfather
Had used a realtor!

The scar of progression
So blatantly hidden from sight
Like footprints on the moon.
Scars you cannot see ~ marks meant 2B.

I remember the first time I was booked …
Any identifying marks, scars or tattoos?
It seemed emancipation was merely a proclamation.
A right a court had to grant
Not one meant to be freely taken!
I was fingerprinted and ultimately made a ward of the courts.
Talk about an unforeseen lasting scar!

Folklore has it, if you leave your mark while imprisoned
You are doomed to revisit it.
I’d think twice about where to leave your marks.

So what of legacy…?
My ancestors carved, chiseled out in stone, spirals ~ concentric rings
That charted, indeed mapped the awe and wonder of the universe.
While others drew on walls, left caves marked with pictures…
Such treasures!

Thus,
My tribute:
            I remember as an young man seeing the first of many treasure maps.  While the riches to be discovered varied, they all held one thing in common … two lines crossing ~ X marking the site to discover said treasure.  May my marks bring riches to your life … I promise you will find them when you see where I seem to cross the lines! | RM

R. MIRANDA WAS BORN IN SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA. HE IS NATIVE AMERICAN (MAYAN, APACHE, YAQUI) AND SPANISH/ROMANIAN. HIS WRITING IS A FORM OF POSITIVE FOCUS AND HEALING AND EXPRESSION.

Sitting in the verb of a noun.
The adjective speaks to the complex sentences,
Of complexities in a complex made world.
Adverbs feel the shots of "Clyde the Glide" stats
That stack years
atop
the
heads
Of the living human beings.
Conjunctional realities revised in Statutes of oppression,
As invisible preposition thought laid the architect’s articles
Drafted in the modeled belief: kill the Indian save the man.
100 + years later the perpetuated beliefs take new root
In the new tactics of modern day warfare
Waging-war time-wages are cut in modern day slave camps
As penitentiaries kill more and more Prisoners Of War.
Shots fired! Indins enduring! Shots fired!
Prisoners of war enduring!
Systematic confusion blurs receptivity in convoluted minds
As the convoluted conversations of the Establishment instill
21st century genocide by incarceration.
Historic in time, present in time, in-time
Over
Time
Never stops as
Authoritarian rules reign in the name of: Industry.
Fragmented sentences rain

F
R
A
G
M
E
N
T
S

On Individualized Education Plans.
The materialistic eyes visualize the monetary blues of ink
Inked black and white on pleading trial papers
Paper too expansively rich to under stand
And too expensively cheap to stand under.
Architects’ blueprints constitute class destruction
In the articulated madness of Institutionalizations institute:
The prison industrial complex.
It’s simple, prepare children for human warehousing.
The vice roll the dice, roaming the empty streets
As the boys in blue fill their cruisers to capacity
To de-capacitate the Nations toned in colors
Red, yellow, black, browns and opaque white.
All affable, beautiful, multihued paints of Earth
That are only dimmed in the overlooked burnt out streetlights
That rest on the very edge of the world.
Re-capacitating our minds-body
Reclaiming our spirits-heart as we exist to live
Inside the verb of a noun. | NJB

NOLAN JAMES BRIDEN WAS RAISED IN PORTLAND, OREGON. HIS ROOTS BLOOM FROM RICH CULTURES,  BLACKFEET AND IRISH.  HE WRITES: “I’M JUST GETTING TO A POINT IN THE EXPLORATION OF WRITING TO BE ABLE TO SAY IT IS A RELATIONSHIP THAT I UNDERSTAND; THEN, I READ A DIFFERENT STYYLE, FORM, OR WAY OF WRITING AND MY JOURNEY RESTARTS TO UNDERSTAND.” NOLAN IS A MEMBER OF THE LAKOTA OYATE-KI CULTURE CLUB AT OREGON STATE PENITENTIARY AND HE IS A FOUNDING MEMBER OF THE GROUND BENEATH US WRITING GROUP.

Shots Fired Shots Fired Indian Enduring

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You must always protect yourself. Protecting yourself does not mean physically protecting yourself per se, this also includes arming yourself with history…

from “Dear Lynne” by Theron Hall

PonyXpress Radio Series, Part two: Simple Man
Featuring writing from Oregon State Penitentiary spoken by the authors Nolan James Briden, Jimmy Kashi, Theron Hall, Rarin Qualls, Austin Clark, Stressla Lynn Johnson, and Le’Var Howard. Music was composed and performed by Le’Var Howard. This show first aired May 28, 2024 on XRAY.fm. A grant from Oregon Humanities supported this part of the project along with public readings in prisons and community spaces around the state.

It is June 30, 2018 and I sit alone in a prison yard watching our band Luther’s Boots play for a group of 750 people at Oregon State Penitentiary. The show was a fundraiser for constructing the prison’s Japanese Healing Garden. That day, I felt small and illiterate as I sat on that brittle grass alone. I was acutely aware of the crowd of giant men on all sides of me as they hollered and cheered for the band. I say illiterate because I didn’t know how to read this sea of faces held in place by years of masculine training and their arms, necks, legs, chests covered in tattoos I couldn’t decipher. The men in the bleachers were strangers who had lived very different lives. Where could we possibly find common ground?

That day, I squared my shoulders, shook hands, and said hello to as many men as I could. And in return, I was welcomed with hospitality, gentleness, and the kind of grace that radically changed the trajectory of my life. Now when I scan the crowd, I recognize faces, and the men I have come to know. Tonight, we will celebrate the college graduation of Kyle Hedquist, who we met that day. In 2018, Kyle was president of the Lifer’s Club and was serving life without parole. Within six months of meeting he had paved the way for our first writing program at OSP. It was Kyle who hand-selected writers to contribute to the project we made together and completed during Covid, the anthology Prisons Have A Long Memory — for which he wrote the title essay. Governor Kate Brown granted Kyle clemency and on April 15, 2022, Danny and I were honored to be among the many supporters to greet him as he crossed that prison wall. Since his release, Kyle has married, taken up advocacy work with the legislature on the behalf of his brothers and sisters still behind the walls, and of course, finished his degree. Congratulations Kyle we are so proud to know you. From his piece Life Prevails which was printed in the anthology:

While separated from the ones I love, I can still see beauty all around me. Even the menacing high concrete walls are no match for Mother Nature. Moss turns golden brown along its top and droops down the walls like worn curtains. Rain falls and makes patterns like mountainscapes. Every crack in the wall hides leaves and petals from windblown fields. The moss lying in the crevices smells of the forest I once ran through as a child. I secretly pick blackberries growing in a long-abandoned hitching post from centuries past. Life prevails all around me and new beginnings welcome me, call me, to find them on the Big Yard of OSP. 

Among his many attributes, Kyle is an excellent judge of character. He introduced us to many of our most successful workshop contributors, including R. Miranda who has been writing with us since day one. R. Miranda is one of those giant men who joined as a stranger with an accordion file filled with his work and soon became a valuable elder voice in our group. As part of our summer special issue, we decided to spotlight this man who has served 33 years of a life without parole sentence. Born in San Jose, California, R. Miranda sites his roots that combine Mayan, Apache, Yaqui ancestry with Spanish/Romanian heritage. In his tale The Prince and The Princess he imagines the connections that brought his people to these shores. His short memoir A Defining Moment provides context for where his education began, and Portrait of a Native Chief continues that story. We follow with a new selection of poems, along with previously published work to provide you an opportunity to get to know something of this man. | TDS

Unarranged Words
You Will Never Know
Into the Light (Defiance of Silence)
Awake
The Harvest Moon
When Love

Words on a page
so unarranged
can tend to look awkward
and strange;
First popping in              then jumping out,
h O ppi n g and ro v i ng
about.
But, no matter the verse,
construction
or line,

especially not the rhyme:
upon closer look
it's clear that it took,
if not genius, then certainly time,
for the poet
to write such a gaudly sight
and still have the mess
make sense. | RM

R. MIRANDA WAS BORN IN SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA. HE IS NATIVE AMERICAN (MAYAN, APACHE, YAQUI) AND SPANISH/ROMANIAN. HIS WRITING IS A FORM OF POSITIVE FOCUS AND HEALING AND EXPRESSION.

INCARCERATION
An Island
Lost in darkness
Does not define me
Cannot confine me

Loneliness laden moments
Marked by time …
The onus is not on time
Spent away from family
The onus is time spent
Away from family
Yet my brothers are here
With me – within me
Brothers undefined by tradition
United through condition

A composition
Underscoring dis-similar life styles
Experiences so un-a-like …
So much the same …
Voices compacted – morphing – becoming
A symphony of silence
Un-til each word
S  l  o  w  l  y
Becoming heard
Liberates – ignites – freedom’s torch! | RM

R. MIRANDA WAS BORN IN SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA. HE IS NATIVE AMERICAN (MAYAN, APACHE, YAQUI) AND SPANISH/ROMANIAN. HIS WRITING IS A FORM OF POSITIVE FOCUS AND HEALING AND EXPRESSION.

At the age of 13, I found myself on my own. It was a conscience choice I made as an alternative to living in the hostile environment that was my childhood household. Dad was an abusive, drug using alcoholic … enough said.

My new home became, what were in those days referred to as, “The Mean Streets” of L.A. Although I was a high school drop-out (having only completed the 9^th grade), I soon started my college education. I call it my college education because it was nothing like I could or would have learned in high school.

My classrooms were various youth homes and JDH. My professors were my fellow juvenile delinquents. I majored in Survival in the Concrete Jungle with a minor in the Performing Arts.

It didn't take long to learn that if I acted like a bad-ass, and put on an Oscar-winning performance, people tended to leave me alone and steered clear of me. Some even respected me, albeit in a very twisted way. I earned my degree in short time.

Life became a series of placements in one juvenile facility after another, which was always followed by some version of me going AWOL or outright escaping, with a GTA, grand theft auto, added on just for good measure. Somehow, I always returned to those same old mean streets that had become my home. I often wondered why people referred to those familiar neighborhoods as being dangerous, and "no place to be after dark." For me they offered me a sense of safety and peace, especially as night would fall.

It wouldn't be until nearly 10 years later that I finally realized, as I sat on Death Row, that I was the monster in the dark that people feared — like I said, it was an Oscar-winning performance.

My time in the crucible as I kindly refer to my time spent on the row brought for me many insights, and the occasional duh moments. Perhaps the most defining moment happened about a year into my stay as a few thoughts built upon one another. The first came to me during an ongoing stream of conversations in my head (something I experienced quite often in those days.) I'm not sure if I was actually talking to God, manifesting itself as a voice in my sub-conscience, or some more practical part of my sub-conscience that I was finally able to hear. Either way, the voice was certainly offering sage insight.

The conversation went something like this: God, why am I here? And when I asked this question, it WAS NOT in reference to the horrible crime that brought me here. That is all too clear, and sadly, beyond recompense. No, the why I was thinking about was more along the lines of a how. “How is it that I find myself here? How is it that people that know nothing about me can say that I am worthless? How is it that, on the inside, I often thought of myself as a good man, yet on the outside, all that people see is a monster. And this is when the light slowly started to come on. It wasn't all at once; it was more like some slowly turning the dimmer switch to the on position. The voice said, “You're right, you are a good man. But if all you ever show the world is a bad ass how will they ever know anything different? How can they possible see you in any other light?”

Talk about a duh moment!  It brought me to a place where I could see a clear picture of what direction my life needed to go in, and more so, exactly what I needed to change. So back to school I went. My first order of business was to literally get my GED. | RM

R. MIRANDA WAS BORN IN SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA. HE IS NATIVE AMERICAN (MAYAN, APACHE, YAQUI) AND SPANISH/ROMANIAN. HIS WRITING IS A FORM OF POSITIVE FOCUS AND HEALING AND EXPRESSION.

I do not doubt that there are wise men from other tribes,
For History, is hardly news.
And wiser words were never spoken:
"Until you walk a mile in his shoes."

Until you walk a mile in my shoes,
You will never know my life.
Until you fight my many struggles,
You will never know my strife.

Until your tongue is cut from your mouth,
You will never know my shame.
Until your Mother, Sister, and Daughters are raped,
You will never know my pain.

Until thieves come in the night and kill your family,
You will never know my sorrow.
Until all that you have is stolen and you are left locked in a closet,
You will never know my tomorrow.

Until you see the Rivers, the Trees, the Essence of Life,
Mother Earth, slowly become DEAD,
And fight to preserve Her Precious Gifts …
You will never know what it's like to be RED. | RM

R. MIRANDA WAS BORN IN SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA. HE IS NATIVE AMERICAN (MAYAN, APACHE, YAQUI) AND SPANISH/ROMANIAN. HIS WRITING IS A FORM OF POSITIVE FOCUS AND HEALING AND EXPRESSION.

Your laughter heals in troubled times,
sending electric waves that re-awaken your baby boy's heart.
Intrinsic Being belonging to spirit,
you are a sacred woman  —  a courageous woman — a kind woman.
You are the world to so many — you are the world to me.
You open up my eyes, allowing me to sight see
outside into the expanse of stability shackled man broken free.

— Herkimmer’s Friend by Nolan James Briden

Together with our writers at Oregon State Penitentiary and Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, we recorded a three-part series that broadcast on Portland’s community-supported radio station XRAY.fm. Some of these pieces were published in the PonyXpress Issue 1: The Ancestors.

We sat together for an entire day on the 5th floor of Oregon State Penitentiary recording as many writers as possible. Twenty-five of us gathered in the room listening as Danny Wilson recorded each person. There were testimonies and sometimes tears, we cheered, we clapped, we laughed — a lot. As each person came to the microphone, Stressla Lynn Johnson called out “Quiet on the set.”

Part one: Mother
Featuring writing from Oregon State Penitentiary by Jimmy Kashi, Jeff Sanders, AbdurRashid Al’Wadud, Nolan James Briden, Lakota Oyate-ki drumming, and Jeff Witt. Music was composed and performed by Le’Var Howard.

This show first aired May 21, 2024 on XRAY.fm. A grant from Oregon Humanities supported this part of the project along with public readings in prisons and community spaces around the state. On a personal note: I became a mother seventeen years ago — Happy Birthday Bug.

LISTEN: MOTHER FEATURING WRITERS FROM OSP

Working with our writers at Oregon State Penitentiary and Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, we have put together this three-part series broadcast.

FOLLOW THE LINKS TO LISTEN.

Tuesday, May 21, 7:15am | Part one: Mothers
From Oregon State Penitentiary
Jimmy Kashi, Jeff Sanders, AbdurRashid Al’Wadud, Nolan James Briden, Lakota Oyate-ki drumming, and Jeff Witt

Tuesday, May 28, 7:15am | Part two: Simple Man
From Oregon State Penitentiary
James Nolan Briden, Jimmy Kashi, Theron Hall, Rarin Qualls, Austin Clark, Stressla Lynn Johnson, and Le’Var Howard

Tuesday, June 5, 7:15am | Part three: Roots Meet Below the Crossroads
From Coffee Creek Correctional Facility
Samantha Jensen, Kristie Jeffers, Gina Baker, Carolyn Stickley, Hannah Brophy, Manda Moonlight, and Comrade Candle.

This project came together thanks to help from Chase Spross of XRAY.FM and was supported by Oregon Humanities.

And be a simple kind of man
Oh, be something you love and understand
Baby, be a simple kind of man
Oh, won't you do this for me son, if you can?

— Lynyrd Skynyrd

Working with our writers at Oregon State Penitentiary and Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, we have put together this three-part series broadcast. Tune in to hear our marvelous writers!

Tuesday, May 21, 7:15am | Part one: Simple Man
From Oregon State Penitentiary
James Nolan Briden, Jimmy Kashi, Theron Hall, Rarin Qualls, Austin Clark, Stressla Lynn Johnson, and Le’Var Howard

Tuesday, May 28, 7:15am | Part two: Mothers
From Oregon State Penitentiary
Jimmy Kashi, Jeff Sanders, AbdurRashid Al’Wadud, Nolan James Briden, Lakota Oyate-ki drumming, and Jeff Witt

Tuesday, June 5, 7:15am | Part three: Roots Meet Below the Crossroads
From Oregon State Penitentiary
Samantha Jensen, Kristie Jeffers, Gina Baker, Carolyn Stickley, Hannah Brophy, Manda Moonlight, and Comrade Candle.

This project came together thanks to help from Chase Spross of XRAY.FM and was supported by Oregon Humanities.

We drove to Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution in Pendleton, about a 3-hour drive from Portland for our monthly meeting where we were surprised and delighted to learn that David Pedro, EOCI Superintendent and his staff selected us as their volunteers of the year; they recognize that “bringing music and creative writing into our facility enhances rehabilitative efforts by providing a creative outlet for AICs ...” We were presented with certificates and a small crystal ball etched with a globe and it seems to float on the pedestal engraved PonyXpress. The award comes just over a year after we decided on the drive back from Pendleton to create this project. I can’t help but think how the work we are doing together with our writers is akin to looking into the crystal ball to see what lies ahead. The impulse to show up at a prison writing workshop, sharing our thought and hopes and stories, to drive for hours to meet with strangers and slowly build trust, to turn around and publish those tender words — all of these things are acts of faith. They are the actions of people who see the potential for something better. Scoff at the fortune teller’s crystal ball if you like, but there is great power in letting yourself see what is possible.

WC Puppy’s “In This Mirror” meets the moment, as a man comes across a few tables of belongings at an estate sale. He wonders: “would his legacy amount to a yard sale to liquidate all his material possessions?” What he encounters is a magical object that helps him provide a measure of his life. R. Miranda’s “When Love” operates as a short, short story written as a poem. It that moves through an entire life, posing the same question as a refrain.

With great thanks to Oregon Humanities and Station Director Chase Spross at XRAY.FM, our radio three -part mini-series will broadcast
Tuesday, May 14 at 7:30am (Simple Man from OSP)
Tuesday, May 21 at 7:30am (Mothers from OSP)
Tuesday, May 28 at 7:30am (Roots Meet at the Crossroads from Coffee Creek)
The shows feature our writers reading their work, with a little bit of context from us about the project. You can listen in real time on the XRAY.fm website/or find them archived later: This project was a joy to put together, and we hope that we will be able to make more of these shows. | TDS

Little child
Sleepless night
Father's far from home
Lonely heart
Feels the pain
He wakes up all alone
Sadness
Sorrow
And pain again ...
Tell me please,
When love?

Little boy
Disguised as man
The lonely streets his home
Teary eyes
Long since gone
Now tough he stands alone
Anger
Rage
And pain again ...
Tell me then,
When love?

Young girl - young man nature’s plan
Let’s build a happy home
Broken hearts
Shattered dreams
All's lost he's now alone
Stolid
Numb
And pain again ...
Tell me now,
When love?

Lovely lady
Handsome man
A life he's never known
Caring soul
Sees the pain
Claims him as her own
Tires soon
Open wounds
Feels the pain again ...
Oh, tell me please,
When love?

Aging man
Lonely child
A prison now his home
Cold dark cell
Sleepless night
He wakes up all alone
Pain again ...
Pen in hand
He simply writes,
When love?  | RM

R. MIRANDA WAS BORN IN SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA. HE IS NATIVE AMERICAN (MAYAN, APACHE, YAQUI) AND SPANISH/ROMANIAN. HIS WRITING IS A FORM OF POSITIVE FOCUS AND HEALING AND EXPRESSION.