SELF-LOVE

BY TRACY SCHLAPP

The people who arrive at the PonyXpress workshop tables are ready to write themselves forward. Here’s what I mean; at OSP, we are joined by a few level ones — folks who have the lowest security clearance, in many cases they may have just recently come out of solitary. We understand that they may screw up again, but what is important here is that they are trying to make better choices. They are ready to learn a new way. And so, when I say that they are ready to write themselves forward, these folks have the imagination to expect that there is something better ahead. They are ready for the conversation. And lucky for us, they are surrounded by experts who have traveled the treacherous road. Most of our writers have already been down the very dark, narrow hallway of prison alone. At some moment (or a series of moments), they have made a turn toward making a life with a future. This future may always be spent in prison, but they have now come to value their lives. And with it they value how they do their time.

In the free world, our podcasts, social media feeds, and bookshelves are laden with advice to the achieve Philautia (self-love.) Simple solutions. Hard in practice. Carolyn K. writes from Coffee Creek’s minimum side, a few months left on her long sentence. In her piece “Philautia” she finds: “It has taken me many years of classes, self-reflection, and grace to know there is more to me than what the world says I am.” In this next chapter of her life, she will rely on these tools as she navigates her freedom.

Amir’whadi’s “Honor” shows his path to creating his legacy. His code comes from the pride of maintaining his integrity and his self-respect. “Another session of trying/ to reach perfection …” Staying the course in the work, “to make a way from no way.” It requires practice.

Writing exercises in the workshop shake up the writers’ brains. We brought in lists of words and asked the writers to select three words and compose a poem. In Le’Var Howard’s “Breath, Hard, Body” we walk through his morning routine. As I read it, I think of the deliberate preparation of an athlete warming up his muscles, focusing mentally before going out into the arena: “I prepare for my day slowly,/ Staring into the mirror./ To see me.” There is attention, finding clarity before moving into the chaotic sea of men in the yard. This is self-care as a form of self-protection.

Stressla Lynn Johnson is prolific, his writing practice is twenty years strong. He testifies that the writing has been an active agent in his reform. Stressla uses the word “healing” often as he describes the parts of his practice that have delivered him from a man sitting on death row to the mentor of youngsters today. The writing alone is not enough, activating and releasing the poem is part of his discipline. “Protection…Protector” reads like a mantra that holds the taunting shadows at bay. A reading of the work shifts it from the magical realm into the practical day-to-day of prison.There! | TDS