A special collaborative issue between Free Verse and the literary journal of the University of Montana, CutBank, featuring the writing and artwork of Montana’s incarcerated youth. Proceeds from the sale of Commissary Notes were used to provide copies to Free Verse students.
Foreword
In the Fall of 2018, we joined a group of students and faculty members from the University of Montana to begin a collaborative research project with States of Incarceration, a national archival project that maps the experience and effects of incarceration across the United States.
This project, which began under the guidance of Professor Katie Kane and in conjunction with the Humanities Action Lab, examined the history of Montana and its place in American westward expansion, as well as Montana’s relationship to the doctrine of Manifest Destiny. These are histories that underpin contemporary practices of incarceration in the United States, such as the detention of immigrants and the separation of families at the border. Specifically, we wondered how Montana’s history of segregation and incarceration—from Native reservations and boarding schools to juvenile detention centers and prisons—made possible the myth of the West that Manifest Destiny promised to early colonial settlers at the expense of Native people; an idea that is still at stake in the national imaginary.
Some members of our cohort examined the history of Montana’s Native American reservations—mapping the discrepancies between their vast ancestral lands and the territories to which they were relegated after colonial settlement. Others examined the relationship between boarding schools and juvenile detention facilities, mapping the militarization of both, and noting how each institution has dispropor- tionately targeted youth of color. Still others engaged with the popular Western ideologies of public land access, and wondered why this access is often only granted to specific classes or races.
As graduate students in the Creative Writing MFA program, we were drawn to the work done by Free Verse—a creative writing program that teaches and encourages artistic expression in juvenile detention centers in Montana. Free Verse provides an important creative outlet for incarcerated youth and allows them to recognize that their voices, their stories, and their feelings matter. For members of our community who exist within a system designed to hide them away, the development of their voices and the ability to tell their stories is an im- portant opportunity to be seen and counted. Additionally, for those who aren’t familiar with the lived reality of detention, reading the work of young incarcerated writers allows for a deeper understanding of the lives of those living inside an often brutalizing and dehumanizing system.
For this reason, we partnered with CutBank, a nationally renowned literary journal run by the graduate students of The University of Montana’s Creative Writing Program, in order to release a special issue featuring the writing of local incarcerated youth, as collected and inspired by Free Verse. All submissions appear in this issue anonymously, for the safety and privacy of the writers, without any editorial changes. These powerful stories and poems tell stories of hurt and healing, of power and pain. They grab the mic and then drop it. They demand to be seen, heard, and understood.
It is with great pride that we present this special edition of CutBank, and hope it manages to do justice to the incredible spirit, experience, and resilience of the incarcerated youth and young adults of our community. It is our hope that this publication be a window, not a wall—an opportunity for those on the outside to see and hear the stories of those within.
Sincerely,
Editors of Commissary Notes
Selected Excerpts from Commissary Notes
1. I/We/Are
2. Montana Inside
3. Address
4. My Life, My Mind
Because (For Standing Rock)
Because this is my land
Because my ancestors were here first
Because my ancestors fought to protect
Because our land was stolen
Because the earth is a living thing
Because the trees walk
Because the lakes speak
Because rocks have power
Because we are one nation
I Am
I am a prisoner waiting to escape.
I am a homeless man taking a vape.
I am a child crying in a crib.
I am a man that was stabbed in the rib.
I am the mother waiting for her child
Because he out late doing things that are wild.
I am that child staying out late,
Doing drugs with some girl named Kate.
I am the pilot preparing to crash
Hoping that his family can live off the cash.
I am the family mourning their loss
I am the wife just fired by her boss.
I am the criminal shooting up a school
When I was a kid I thought it was cool.
I am the teacher yelling take cover
I am the children crying with each other.
I am the first life, I am the first death.
I am everybody’s desperate last breath.
I Am From
I’m from the drugs
And playing with the bugs
I’m from playing in the mountains
And always shouting
I’m from the ponderosa pines
Not the jungle vines
I’m from the meth lab
And the Ford crew cab
I’m from the big sky
And always getting high
I’m from the two story house
And wandering all around
I’m from the dark nights
Just sitting there trying to take flight
I’m from the bottle
Causing dad to go wide open throttle
I’m from the drug store snacks
To the long naps
I’m from the place
That has the meth project pace
I’m from the #1 suicidal state
With a million ranch gates
Safe Space
An hour goes by, nothing changes. The blue sky still had the soft, warm sun. The wind still carries the pine smell down the mountains. The rocky road still has its soothing crunch when walked upon. My bench in my safe place on the mountain.
-D.
Staying Put
The only place in my civilization is the cedar and the pond, corresponding in a manner of devotion. On the rez is my sacred place for me. Knowing there is something to build. Lately, staying put with linguistics. Better days are yet to come with someone who calls me their idol. Always shining, the morning star person I am.
-Morning Star
Dear Self
I’ve seen you slipping, forever falling down
Never acting like yourself, mood swings going around
I’ve thought about stepping in and helping, but you don’t look open to it now
My voice is growing dimmer, soon you won’t even hear the sound
I hope you pull it together, working this program is the first step
I’d hate to see you forever stuck, drowning in the depth
For All The Times
For all the times I said goodbye
I’m writing now to say hello
For all the times I made you cry
I’m writing now to say I know
For all the times you’ve prayed to god
And asked him how or why
Just let your heartache go
For all the times I said goodbye
I’m writing now to say hello
What I Am in My Father’s Eyes
I am nothing in my father’s eyes
He tells me this
Repeatedly I am told I am nothing and never
Going to be nothing
I am not worthy of my father’s love
And for that I am nothing in my father’s eyes
He beats me down, mentally, emotionally, and physically
He beats me down lower than I have ever been
I am now lower than the dirt you walk on
I am nothing in my father’s eyes
I always thought he was telling me lies
It took me a long time to realize
I am nothing in my father’s eyes
Untitled (The Last Time I Saw My Brother)
The last time I saw my brother I cried because I was in shackles and I couldn’t give him a hug. It was depressing because I really wanted to talk to him and hug him. He was crying too.
What It Means To Be Published
By Sarah Kahn, Founder of Free Verse
If you drive west from downtown Missoula, you’ll pass a beige, green trimmed building sitting just off the road. This is the Missou- la County Juvenile Detention Center. From the parking lot, you can see the mountains that edge the Bob Marshall, over a million acres of wilderness untouched by wheels or machinery. Still, your view of the famous expanse of Montana sky will be laced with the metal crosses of chain-linked fence. Within that fenced space, a smaller cage holds the half-sized cement basketball court where the kids are allowed to spend one hour a day. From inside the hall, you can’t see sky at all.
I decided to volunteer at the juvenile detention center during the summer after my first year of graduate school. When I found out that there wasn’t an organization I could volunteer for that went to juvy, I decided I’d start my own. It took me months to convince the director to let us in; a whole season of calling and calling back and showing up at his door. When he finally cleared it, I dragged two friends in to teach our first creative writing class. We thought it would be a few hours here and there, but once we met these kids, everything changed. We went four times a week that summer, and when summer ended, we kept going.
During our visits, we encouraged the students to tell their stories through a variety of different activities and lesson plans. Our stu- dents were producing powerful and unique work, and we began to think about having it published. It happened that I knew about an organization in California, The Beat Within, that published the art and writing of incarcerated youth. After contacting them, I was able to secure a few pages in their magazine, which they publish twice monthly, for our kids.
The first time we were able to bring a copy of The Beat into the classroom, we weren’t sure how they would feel about seeing their work in print, or whether they would care. The kids aren’t allowed to stand unless directed by the teacher, but when we handed out The Beat, after a moment of quiet paper-rustling, one of the boys in back shot up, forgetting himself. He rushed to the front of the room, holding the magazine out to show his teacher. “I got in the paper for a good reason!” he blurted.
∙∙∙
One of my favorite moments with Free Verse happened at Pine Hills, the long term facility in Miles City, where kids are farther from family and more isolated. We had driven across the state to spend a few days teaching, excited to see students we had known from their time at the MCJDC or from previous visits. One of my favorite students--I’ll call him D--whom I had met when he was just fourteen, was there at the time. D is an unusually talented writer and a sweet, sensitive, thoughtful young man. We brought a chapbook of poems and writing by our Free Verse students, because we wanted any students who were still inside to have a copy, and we always find it valuable to teach student work. Be- cause of confidentiality concerns, we publish all of our students’ poems anonymously.
Before one of our classes, we let the kids open the book and flip through the pages, taking time to read. We asked each of them to pick a favorite poem to share with the class as a warmup.
A few of the kids were aspiring rappers and decided to perform their favorite poem for us. After they had had time to read and practice, we found them a beat from a YouTube clip and they began to rap. The poem they had chosen was D’s. He didn’t tell his friends that he had written it, but when he heard his words come out of their mouths, he sat up straighter and something in his face changed. After class ended and the other boys started to trail out, he stayed behind, shaking each of our hands. He was excited in the way that kids often are, brimming with pride and earnest optimism.
Inside the halls, it’s so rare to see that part of the kids. They grow tough, or they fake it, and they become jaded and untrusting, and often lose faith in themselves and in the world. I wished I could give D more-- the childhood he was meant to have, the essay contests he might have won, the parents who could have been there to be proud of him when he succeeded.
But in that moment, I was able to give him the recognition he deserved. In that moment, he wasn’t a young man or a juvenile offender; he was a teenage boy who had been told by a room of people that he was incredibly talented, and he had believed them. “I know I’m going to do it now,” he told us. “When I get out, I’m going to write, I’m going to record songs, and I’m going to make it.”