Detroit News Documents Program Bringing Poetry to Prisons

At Detroit News, RJ Wolcott documents Guillermo Delgado's course at Michigan State University, which pairs university students with inmates at Richard A. Handlon Correctional Facility to encourage them to express themselves through poetry. "'I was afraid of my pen though,'" a prisoner,  Diarra Bryant said, recalling when he began to see flyers advertising the initiative posted around the jail. From there: 

When locked up, Bryant said men like him put up walls to shield any sensitivity from those around them. By the second or third week of the workshops, those walls collapsed thanks to the prodding of Delgado. Some of the men call him Dr. G. or Mr. G.

“You feel that sensitivity from Dr. G, and you have no other choice but to let your guard down and become human again,” Bryant said.

The class brings up to a dozen MSU students inside the prison weekly to host poetry workshops for select prisoners.

Among them last semester was Arzelia Williams. She was prompted to take the class by the connection between one of her passions, poetry, and incarceration, which has impacted her family. Two of her family members have spent time behind bars.

“Within their poetry, some took up topics related to neighborhoods when they were young, the criminal justice system and the decisions they had made,” Williams said.

Read more at Detroit News.