Prison a Writer's Godsend?
Yesterday I read a New York Times opinion piece entitled Why Writers Belong Behind Bars. When I posted the link on my Facebook page, it generated an interesting discussion. Here are some random comments I dashed off there:
I think this is a perfect example of the "post hoc, ergo propter hoc" logical fallacy. E.g., I'm a better writer now than I was before I went to prison, therefore prison made me a better writer. Shite! I suppose it has nothing to do with the fact that I'm 20 years older now, more mature, have more experience writing, have read more of others' writing, and have a clearer idea of who I am and why I write and what I want to write about and how to write about it....
It's harder to write in prison than you might think [at least that was my experience].
Prison lacks those distractions [e.g., the internet] but has its own. Imagine living in a room with 200 other guys - and the room's only designed to house 80 - and it's busier than a beehive and can be dangerous and you learn to survive by paying full attention to your surroundings, so it's hard to focus and write about anything else. But you can't write about your surroundings either, because the inmates will think you're an undercover investigator and a snitch and the officers can shake you down at random whenever they want and read what you're writing and use it against people which makes them want to attack you and makes you have to be even more attentive to your surroundings. Not to mention you have a 40 hour a week job that pays $18 a month and you're involved in all these programs that are essential to getting out on parole and when the inmates finally learn they CAN trust you, they want to talk to you all the time and confide in you and seek your advice and won't leave you alone and you don't wanna piss them off.
So after you've been in for a while and have good behavior you jump at the chance to move out of the one-room dormitory and into the cellblock, where you only have to deal with one other guy. But he has a personal TV in his cell and it's blasting all day and he wants to talk and needs you to tutor him and his friends are always at the door to the cell and you're working for the chaplain when you're not working your 40-hour library job and the only way you can get any peace and quiet is to go out to the yard and walk in circles around the half mile track. But then a bunch of guys want to walk with you and you still have no quiet so you start jogging and then running until no one can keep up with you — or if they can, they're not so inclined to talk and pretty soon you're running as many as ten miles a day, even when it snows and it becomes a meditation to you but also consumes that much more of your time everyday. And when you do have time to write you're writing letters to your family or your girlfriend or essays for the correspondence classes you're taking from O.U. and you finally resign yourself to the fact that you won't be able to write about prison til you get out... and that's just the tip of the iceberg.
I think this is a perfect example of the "post hoc, ergo propter hoc" logical fallacy. E.g., I'm a better writer now than I was before I went to prison, therefore prison made me a better writer. Shite! I suppose it has nothing to do with the fact that I'm 20 years older now, more mature, have more experience writing, have read more of others' writing, and have a clearer idea of who I am and why I write and what I want to write about and how to write about it....
It's harder to write in prison than you might think [at least that was my experience].
Prison lacks those distractions [e.g., the internet] but has its own. Imagine living in a room with 200 other guys - and the room's only designed to house 80 - and it's busier than a beehive and can be dangerous and you learn to survive by paying full attention to your surroundings, so it's hard to focus and write about anything else. But you can't write about your surroundings either, because the inmates will think you're an undercover investigator and a snitch and the officers can shake you down at random whenever they want and read what you're writing and use it against people which makes them want to attack you and makes you have to be even more attentive to your surroundings. Not to mention you have a 40 hour a week job that pays $18 a month and you're involved in all these programs that are essential to getting out on parole and when the inmates finally learn they CAN trust you, they want to talk to you all the time and confide in you and seek your advice and won't leave you alone and you don't wanna piss them off.
So after you've been in for a while and have good behavior you jump at the chance to move out of the one-room dormitory and into the cellblock, where you only have to deal with one other guy. But he has a personal TV in his cell and it's blasting all day and he wants to talk and needs you to tutor him and his friends are always at the door to the cell and you're working for the chaplain when you're not working your 40-hour library job and the only way you can get any peace and quiet is to go out to the yard and walk in circles around the half mile track. But then a bunch of guys want to walk with you and you still have no quiet so you start jogging and then running until no one can keep up with you — or if they can, they're not so inclined to talk and pretty soon you're running as many as ten miles a day, even when it snows and it becomes a meditation to you but also consumes that much more of your time everyday. And when you do have time to write you're writing letters to your family or your girlfriend or essays for the correspondence classes you're taking from O.U. and you finally resign yourself to the fact that you won't be able to write about prison til you get out... and that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Posted by Jesus Crisis at 7/24/2011 8:52 AM 
Categories: Writing and Poetry, Prison
Tags: Marion Correctional Institution
Categories: Writing and Poetry, Prison
Tags: Marion Correctional Institution
One of my prison notebook entries said I thought prison would make it easier to write but that wasn't true, it was actually harder.
That was written while I was in prison in 1970.
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Some things never seem to change
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This is a marvelous, thought-provoking response to the NYT article. Even though you've talked about it before, I hadn't visualized how, er, confined you were, timewise, with all your work activities, and with all the action and interactions going on around you. It's amazing you had time to write in your journal at all.
Your breathlessly delivered, sparsely punctuated, juggernaut response, by the way, reminds me of prose poetry, and I think perhaps it is. It certainly conveys the feeling of desperation and busy-ness that you so vividly describe.
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Well, some thoughts on this. Obviously or perhaps- the writer has never been in a modern-day prison. To me it would seem equating apples with pineapples_ just because they both have apple in the word doesn't mean they are remotely the same.
In Sade's day and age being in prison as a nobleman was very different from being a a prisoner as a commoner. Evidenced by the the description of his quarters which sound very posh by comparison to even how others were kept in those days.. He probably ate well, had wine at his table and did not have to fear for his life. Most likely also did not interact with the "riff raff" either.
He lived a life of privilege even in prison... and most likely did not live in a dorm of 200 or even share a cell with someone else.
I think the writer of the article had not really thought thru the implications of what he wrote...
Your experience of prison- and most peoples is probably very different than his depiction.
I think what you shared though is important... I hope you finally take time to write down what you could not at that time..
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