In addition to being hosted on our site the series. both the broadcast and the podcast, are hosted on PRX.Org for radio stations and Itunes and SoundCloud for individuals.
The Prison Poetry Podcasts
Sit in any prison classroom or recreation room and ask: How many writers are in the room? How many people are writing rhymes or poems? Carefully-folded pieces of paper come out of pockets – words written in tightly stylized hand-writing. As we listen to these poems we realize they hold a deep significance to our understanding of American culture and its tradition of democratic arts.
Prison Poetry Workshop is a public radio show, hosted by Rend Smith, that travels across the country exploring the history and stories connected to the prison poetry literary form.
Alabama Department of Youth Services
We visited with youth at the Alabama Department of Youth Service in Mount Meigs, AL and met graduates of their program who have continued to write.
Alabama Prison Arts and Education Project
The Prison Poetry Workshop traveled to Alabama and met the Alabama Prison Arts and Education Project, a part of Auburn University, which serves prisons across the state. APAEP believes it’s important for the adult prison population to gain an education and access to the arts. Join us as we listen in on their writing workshop.
Call and Response
PPW’s podcast series features short stories, interviews, and prison poems introduced by host Rend Smith. From listening to poems read by incarcerated poets to going inside our nation’s prisons, jails, and detention centers PPW wants to share our work with you as it unfolds. You can even visit our “Poetry Workshop” and read a prisoners’ poem for us to possibly share on our podcast and radio broadcast. Podcasts will be released weekly and also featured on the Prison Poetry Workshop website.
Workshop with Reginald Dwayne Betts
We asked poet and writer Reginald Dwayne Betts to record a workshop for us. Take a listen.
Prison Poetry Workshop has asked poets from across the country to record a special workshop for our listeners. Feel free to play this series for incarcerated, or formerly incarcerated youth and adults and ask them to write their own poetry in response and send them to us. Responses may be posted on the Prison Poetry Workshop website and shared with our listening audience.
Send your response to:
Prison Poetry Workshop
P.O. Box 448
Wilmington, NC 28402
Fenced Jewels
PPW’s podcast series features short stories, interviews, and prison poems introduced by host Rend Smith. From listening to poems read by incarcerated poets to going inside our nation’s prisons, jails, and detention centers PPW wants to share our work with you as it unfolds. You can even visit our “Poetry Workshop” and read a prisoners’ poem for us to possibly share on our podcast and radio broadcast. Podcasts will be released weekly and also featured on the Prison Poetry Workshop website.
Judith Tannenbaum
Judith has taught poetry in prisons across the United States and intensively at San Quentin and other California prisons through Arts-in-Corrections.
Huddie William Ledbetter “Lead Belly”
Lead Belly was born Huddie William Ledbetter near Mooringsport, Louisiana around 1889. We explore Lead Belly’s life in and out of prison. Take a listen.
Lomax’s and prison poetry
Alan Lomax traveled the south visiting prisons and recording songs and interviews. Lomax was a great collector of folk music of the 20th century and invested his work on recording music that was disappearing from the American cultural landscape.
Louisiana State Penitentiary
We traveled to the Louisiana State Penitentiary (also known as Angola or the “The Farm”) to hear the poems of songs in our nation’s largest maximum security prison.
Workshop with Norbert Krapf
We asked poet Norbert Krapf to record a workshop for us. Check it out and then put pen to paper!
Prison Poetry Workshop has asked poets from across the country to record a special workshop for our listeners. Feel free to play this series for incarcerated, or formerly incarcerated youth and adults and ask them to write their own poetry in response and send them to us. Responses may be posted on the Prison Poetry Workshop website and shared with our listening audience.
Send your response to:
Prison Poetry Workshop
P.O. Box 448
Wilmington, NC 28402
Patrick Young Story
We met dozens of poets behind bars in our nation’s prisons and we sat with formerly incarcerated people like Patrick Young, who picked up pen and put it to paper finding their creative muse. Today, Young is an organizer and community educator, but his story is complicated. Join us in listening to it.
New Orleans
Join the Prison Poetry Workshop as we travel to New Orleans and join a group of prison poets who are taking on Walt Whitman.
Incarcerated Louisana Women Singing for Hope
We interview Georgetown ethnomusicologist and documentary filmmaker Ben Harbert about his work in Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women and Elayn Hunt Correctional Institute for Women where he explored the power and role music plays in women’s’ lives. Harbert’s documentary “Follow Me Down: Portraits of Louisiana Prison Musicians weaves together interviews and performances of extraordinary inmate musicians
Reginald Dwayne Betts
We sat with Reginald Dwayne Betts and listened as he shared his own story of incarceration and his ongoing process of becoming a writer and poet.
The Poets of Cooper Street Correctional Facility
Since 1996, the Prison Creative Arts Project (PCAP) has organized annual exhibits and led poetry workshop with inmates at Michigan’s correctional facilities. We start our exploration into PCAP’s work at the Cooper Street Correction Facility in Jackson, Michigan.
Workshop with Buzz Alexander
We asked poet Buzz Alexander of University of Michigan’s Prison Creative Art Project to record a poetry workshop for us.
Prison Poetry Workshop has asked poets from across the country to record a special workshop for our listeners. Feel free to play this series for incarcerated, or formerly incarcerated youth and adults and ask them to write their own poetry in response and send them to us. Responses may be posted on the Prison Poetry Workshop website and shared with our listening audience.
Send your response to:
Prison Poetry Workshop
P.O. Box 448
Wilmington, NC 28402
Broadside Press
Poet, publisher, editor, and founder of Broadside Press. Dudley Randall was born 14 January 1914 in Washington, D.C., but moved to Detroit in 1920 where he founded the legendary Broadside Press. Broadside helped define the Black Arts movement and published Etheridge Knight’s Poems from Prison in 1968, bring prison poetry to a national audience.
Living in the D.: Shaun Moore-Bey
Shaun Moore-Bey is a poet, activist, and regular on the Detroit spoken-word circuit. He is working to be a cultural force for his community.
Poets of Mt. McGregor
Poet Cara Benson leads a powerful writing workshop at the Mt. McGregor Correctional Facility in Saratoga County, New York. We listen in as a group of poets dig deep and create powerful work.
Workshop with Victoria Sammartino
Victoria Sammartino is the Founder and executive director of Voices UnBroken a Bronx-based non-profit organization that facilitates creative writing workshops with young people who are incarcerated/detained or in the foster care system. We asked Victoria to do a writing workshop for us. Check it out.
Prison Poetry Workshop has asked poets from across the country to record a special workshop for our listeners. Feel free to play this series for incarcerated, or formerly incarcerated youth and adults and ask them to write their own poetry in response and send them to us. Responses may be posted on the Prison Poetry Workshop website and shared with our listening audience.
Send your response to:
Prison Poetry Workshop
P.O. Box 448
Wilmington, NC 28402
Patrick Mathieu
Patrick Mathieu is a New York city based artist who majored in dance at City College of New York and had a successful career as a performer. Then, one day, there was a knock on his door.
Patrick shared his story of incarceration with the Prison Poetry Workshop and his journey both in and out of prison. Today, Patrick leads creative writing workshops on Rikers Island and at the Fortune Society.
The Poets of San Quentin
We traveled to San Quentin State Prison, California’s oldest prison, to learn about the lasting tradition of arts and spoken word in this well know institution.
Free Minds Book Club and Writing Workshop
Our time with Free Minds Book Club and Writing Workshop was powerful! D.C. youth who are shipped into the Federal prison system had little contact with home or educational opportunities until Free Minds arrived. We hear their stories and poetry. Check it out.
Randall Horton: D.C. Years
We interviewed Randall Horton about his experience with incarceration and the process he underwent in becoming a poet.
Randall Horton is the author of The Definition of Place and the Lingua Franca of Ninth Street, both from Main Street Rag. Randall is the recipient of the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Award, the Bea Gonzalez Poetry Award and most recently a National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship in Literature. His creative and critical work has most recently appeared in Callaloo, Crab Orchard Review and The Packingtown Review. Randall is a Cave Canem Fellow, a member of the Affrilachian Poets and a member of The Symphony: The House that Etheridge Built. He has a MFA in Poetry from Chicago State University and a PhD in Creative Writing from SUNY Albany. Randall is Assistant Professor of English at the University of New Haven.
Randall Horton
Randall Horton appears in three separate episodes of our first season. We visited with him in his home state of Alabama, explored his youth in D.C., and then reflected with him on his visits and workshops inside New York’s prisons.
Sounds are calling me
PPW’s podcast series features short stories, interviews, and prison poems introduced by host Rend Smith. From listening to poems read by incarcerated poets to going inside our nation’s prisons, jails, and detention centers PPW wants to share our work with you as it unfolds. You can even visit our “Poetry Workshop” and read a prisoners’ poem for us to possibly share on our podcast and radio broadcast. Podcasts will be released weekly and also featured on the Prison Poetry Workshop website.
Workshop with Kyes Stevens
We asked poet Kyes Steven of Auburn University’s Alabama Prison Arts + Education Project to record a workshop for us. Take a listen.
Prison Poetry Workshop has asked poets from across the country to record a special workshop for our listeners. Feel free to play this series for incarcerated, or formerly incarcerated youth and adults and ask them to write their own poetry in response and send them to us. Responses may be posted on the Prison Poetry Workshop website and shared with our listening audience.
Send your response to:
Prison Poetry Workshop
P.O. Box 448
Wilmington, NC 28402
Workshops / podcasts
Patrick Mathieu
Patrick Mathieu is a New York city based artist who majored in dance at City College of New York and had a successful career as a performer. Then, one day, there was a knock on his door.
Patrick shared his story of incarceration with the Prison Poetry Workshop and his journey both in and out of prison. Today, Patrick leads creative writing workshops on Rikers Island and at the Fortune Society.
Luis Rodriguez
Luis Rodriguez
We went to interview Luis Rodriguez simply because his writing was referenced by so many of the incarcerated writers we met and interviewed. Rodriguez is a cultural worker, activist, and poet. His best-known work, Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A., was read by many of the people we interviewed.
Workshop with Judith Tannenbaum
Etheridge Knight: We Free Singers Be
Etheridge Knight (April 19, 1931 – March 10, 1991) was an African-American poet who made his name in 1968 with his debut volume, Poems from Prison.