Meet Our Grantee-Partner: Poetic Justice
Mission: Poetic Justice’s mission is to provide restorative and trauma-informed poetry programs to individuals incarcerated in women’s prisons and jails.
Ellen Stackable first entered Oklahoma jails and prisons to lead spoken word poetry programming. An experienced English teacher and spoken word poet herself, she discovered that while performing poetry is powerful in its own right, the process of transferring emotions to the page was a healing practice for people who have survived abuse, shame, grief, and—ultimately—arrest and incarceration. Writing a poem and speaking it aloud becomes an act of agency in a punitive and often inhumane system.
Stackable began researching gender and trauma-informed writing and collaborating with the Hope Center at the University of Tulsa to study how poetry serves as a restorative tool for people with high scores on the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Test. In March 2014, she started Poetic Justice as a writing class for women at the Tulsa County Jail. Programming soon expanded to four other Oklahoma correctional facilities, then to California, Oregon, South Dakota, and Tijuana, Mexico. Since its founding, more than 4,000 women and 400 volunteers and teaching artists have participated in Poetic Justice classes.
Poetic Justice classes are available to anyone incarcerated in women’s jails, prisons, protective custody, and psychiatric wards. Participants study poems written by other incarcerated and justice-involved poets, write and perform poems, and celebrate the art of poetry. They range in age from 18 to 85, from serving sentences of less than a year to life without the possibility of parole. Some stopped attending school in second grade and some have medical degrees. Poetic Justice is united by the belief that incarcerated people deserve the right to heal from the trauma they have experienced, the harm they have caused, and the shame they feel, which is why all classes end with the group affirmation, “I have a voice, I have hope, I have the power to change my world.”
“At the heart of vulnerability, at the center of the truth, and the doorway through shame, there is a poem. And like Amanda Gorman says, ‘there is a poem in this place,’ —especially here, in America’s prisons and jails, where voicing the depths of one’s experience is best suited by the art and craft of poetry.” —Leti a veteran Poetic Justice participant who is currently serving a sentence of 50 years to life
In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic put a halt to in-person programming. Poetic Justice was able to pivot to offering a distance learning program within a week. This served as a lifeline for participants who were under 23-hour daily lockdowns due to pandemic restrictions. Because distance learning has been so successful, it is still offered for anyone who prefers working one-on-one with a weekly writing partner.
“Throughout the class, I was compelled to dive deep and face the pain and darkness I have survived head-on. That’s helped heal wounds I didn’t even realize were still open.” —Distance learning participant
Poetic Justice applied its 2022 Poetry Foundation Poetry Programs, Partnerships, and Innovation grant to extending fair wages to a diverse group of poetry arts facilitators. Class sizes increased by 40% and became more inclusive and safe for a range of participants, including those with oppositional prison affiliations who reported positive personal relationship outcomes. The grant also made it possible to train incarcerated facilitators, extending access to high-security inmates who are not permitted to take classes with outside providers.
Additionally, Poetic Justice was able to launch a 12-week paid program for former participants on parole called the “Re-Entry Journal Project.” Each day, participants document their successes and challenges on the outside, including employment, housing, transportation, healthcare, and credit restoration. Their journals are compiled into anthologies that are distributed to women who are still incarcerated to help them prepare for life after incarceration.
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