listen: MOTHER
BY TRACY SCHLAPP
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
