Student / Inmate Reflections on The Fourth Year, 2009 - 2010

Why do I write? I want to express my feelings. It is easier to write than to talk about feelings. I want to show that I am more intelligent than I show, and I want to let people know a little about me and my background. I write to talk about my everyday struggles. I write to let my words do the aggressive work instead of my hands. I write because my words won’t get me into as much trouble as my actions did. I let my words do the fighting and pen do the writing. There’s more than meets the eyes in me, you just have to find it. Writing is a good way to find it. This is why I write.

Quintin

This program is good because. It helps people to get to know us better, not just look at us as just inmates or bad kids. People are so quick to judge you by their first impression, but this program lets people in on things that people don’t know about us and that most of us don’t share. And it might change the way people look at us. People judge a book by the cover, but you don’t know what that book is about until you read it.

I like to write because it helps me to express my feelings. It is easier to write to get out stuff than to talk about it. Writing also takes my mind off the stressful things. It makes my time and days go by fast, and it stops me from thinking about what the judge is going to do or say when I get court again. I think about what’s going on in the world on the outside. Sometimes I try to sleep all day, but I can’t. Doing the same thing everyday makes me want to be a locked in. I wish I could have a big plate of home cooked food, lie in a big bed, and chill with my friends again. Writing helps me to ask myself was it worth it.

Lavon

Writing to me is not just writing.

Writing is more than words on a paper. It’s life.

Writing is the way you tell it in black and white.

It’s from your mind above and beyond.

You love and hate.

Writing is your faith in you.

People say are you feeling it,

but I say it’s your mind

thinking from the back to the front and to the front to the back.

Now this is what writing in this project means to me.

Why did I never write?
I never wrote before.

I really can tell you that I was scared and,

I didn’t know what to write about.

I always thought if I wrote it was never going to sound right, so I never wrote.

But now I love writing.

After hearing what everyone wrote last week I went back to my cell and started to think. We are all the same in some way. We all are hurting, and we all hurt someone that we love. And that as long we write we all seem happier.

Anonymous