INCARCERATION TURNED POETIC EXPRESSION

“Life in Art” brings student poets together for self creation and empowerment

Self expression is a powerful force, bringing communities together with a desire to understand each other. Poetry demands personal transformation by creating one united voice from individual experiences; poetry welcomes everyone.

Oak Creek Youth Correctional Facility in Albany, Ore.
(photo by Oregon.gov)

“My opinion of Oak Creek as a facility is sky high because they make so much of positive value available to the girls who are incarcerated there,” said LBCC English faculty member Robin Havenick. “We know that education is one of the great ways of serving a community like Oak Creek. Oak Creek wants to connect with us and I want to be a part of that.”

As the only facility in Oregon, Oak Creek Youth Correctional Facility is a medium security prison for young women who have committed a crime before the age of 18, and were sentenced before the age of 20. The facility is located in Albany, near LBCC.

“I can’t think of any better way to encourage, support, and nurture the opportunity to find your own voice, to feel confident about who you are and who you are becoming as these young women are transforming at Oak Creek,” said Havenick.

For the first time ever LBCC has brought together six LBCC student poets and six Oak Creek Correctional Facility student poets for a "Life in Art Project."

“This project is important in part, to bring awareness to people's stories and provoke curiosity in the experiences of others,” said LBCC Student Poet Laureate Dari Lawrie. “I am amazed by the resilience of the human spirit.”

On March 31, students met for the first time at the Oak Creek Facility for a “meet and greet” orientation.

Inside of the Oak Creek Youth Correctional Facility.
(photo by Richard Ross for Juvenile-in-justice)

“It was great. For some reason I was a little nervous beforehand,” said LBCC student poet Matt Hoffman. “I am not sure what I was expecting, but it was really humanizing to meet these young women and realize that they, like everyone else, have desires, have talents, and make mistakes.”

The project was organized and facilitated by Lawrie and led by Havenick, LBCC English faculty member’s Chris Riseley and Jane White and LBCC Benton Center Director Jeff Davis.

“I am interested in underrepresented populations in our community. There is a lot of untapped richness of perspective and experience,” said Lawrie. “I felt that the LBCC students would learn a lot from the Oak Creek students and vice versa.”

The Oak Creek girls are chaperoned to the LBCC Albany campus where the Life in Art group meets every two weeks for students to read and workshop their poems, and discuss new prompts.

“Poetry is such a raw form of expression and hearing the girls from Oak Creek share pieces of their life experiences through poetry has been shocking in the best way,” said LBCC student poet BreAnna Rae. “It's really eye opening to learn a little bit about people through shared expression.”

Prompts have included taking a look at the past and being in the present. On Thursday, May 5, poet, writer, activist, and educator Walidah Imarisha led the group into the future.

“Prison walls are meant to isolate, to break apart families and communities,” said Imarisha. “Any programs that breach those walls, that physically or metaphorically bring people from behind bars and into the community are important.”

She started the evening with a song that emphasized the power of dreams, then asked the group to give some advice to the future.

Some advice was “don’t look back,” “everything can be transformed,” “nothing is certain except change,” “take advantage of every opportunity,” “cry if you want to,” “it’s okay to feel negative,” “don’t be confined by our generation’s traditions or ideals,” “be yourself,” and “love.”

“The overall lesson plan for the course was based on some of the work I've done with Octavia's Brood,” said Imarisha. “With the concept of visionary fiction, and with the idea of the past, present, and future connected through radical dreaming and science fiction. So I was asked to do a workshop focused on synthesizing past, present, and future together.”

The group will meet again twice this month before saying their goodbye’s on Friday, June 3, at the Benton Center. A celebration will be held where students will read selected poems from the term.

“The work the young women shared, and the concept of them writing separate poems for those three time periods, was incredibly poignant and beautiful,” said Imarisha.

In honor of the workshop, a book of the students’ poetry and portraits will be published along with a display of finished work, portraits, testimonials, and the project’s description at the Benton Center.

“Facilitating the workshop with young women from the youth facility was incredibly powerful, and I was honored to be invited into that space and get to hear the work they are creating,” said Imarisha.

At a Glance:

Oak Creek
http://www.oregon.gov/OYA/oak_creek/oakcreek.htm

"Girls Only: a trip to Oak Creek Youth Correctional Facility (part 1)"
http://www.juvenile-in-justice.com/girls-only-a-trip-to-oak-creek-youth-correctional-facility

Walidah Imarisha
http://walidah.com