DOING TIME
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.
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.”
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.”
Amir’Whadi’s “It Rode” is a succinct poem that illustrates the value of writing while doing time. He brings his reserve (and a sly smile) to 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.
The success of 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