Robert Pollock
New York
Articles by Robert Pollock
Read these new books on justice and incarceration in the US.
Home Prison & Justice Writing Works of Justice The Book of Judith: Honoring Judith Tannenbaum (1947-2019) Two years ago, New Village Press published The Book of Judith: Opening Hearts Through Poetry, an anthology in remembrance of teaching artist Judith Tannenbaum, who dedicated her life to students in and out of prison. Tannenbaum’s career in education goes back to 1970, when she began teaching writing and literature in Berkeley, California.
C. Fausto Cabrera and Zeke Caligiuri on Precarity and Critical Resistance
In November 2023, Coffee House Press released American Precariat: Parables of Exclusion, an anthology of essays edited by a collective of incarcerated writers involved in the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop. The volume interrogates the complexity and fluidity of class and caste systems in the United States, and includes transcribed conversations of the editors discussing each essay. In the latest Works of Justice podcast, two of the editors, C.
Michigan & Me
Home Michigan & Me I tried writing in the county jail, but it was too intense. The events that had landed me there, the ones I was trying to write about, were much too fresh.
Read these new books on justice and incarceration in the US.
Home Prison & Justice Writing Works of Justice Recent Books on Justice and Incarceration In Witness: An Insider’s Narrative of the Carceral State, Lyle C. May explains how information about the specifics of capital punishment is kept from public knowledge, and how this shapes perceptions about justice and the system by which justice is practiced.
An Interview with Prison Library Support Network
Librarianship extends far beyond library shelves, and even further beyond the covers of books. Librarians are trained to respond to curiosity. While they may not know the answer to a question, they tell us where to go in search of an answer or how to go about research towards one. But responding to the research needs of people who are incarcerated requires a bit more focused attention.
Unsealed: In Spite of Prison Walls
As censorship practices continue to worsen in carceral facilities across the country, receiving books has been an increasingly difficult challenge for incarcerated individuals. Prisons, jails, and detention centers implement guidelines that not only determine which books are permitted inside based on content, but also how those books enter. In practice, the policies for mailing books to people in prison are capricious and inconsistent.
Jennifer Baker on Restorative Justice in Young Adult Fiction
Home Prison & Justice Writing Works of Justice Jennifer Baker on Restorative Justice in Young Adult Fiction How far would you go for forgiveness? This is the question stamped on the cover of Forgive Me Not (Nancy Paulsen Books / Penguin, 2023), the debut young adult novel by Jennifer Baker. The novel follows two siblings navigating the growing pains of high school and young adulthood. This comes to a head when Violetta gets drunk and gets behind the wheel of a car, killing her younger sister.
Denouement
Home Denouement Catherine LaFleur was awarded the inaugural Bell Chevigny Prize for the 2023 Prison Writing Contest. Every year, hundreds of imprisoned people from around the country submit poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and dramatic works to PEN America’s Prison Writing Contest, one of the few outlets of free expression for the country’s incarcerated population. Cheryl Weimar is not dead. I tell myself this on days when the mirror won’t look back at me.
Unsealed: On That Old Rock Pile Prison Quilt Project
Life behind prison walls is often dark, desolate, and dismal. Uniform colors are typically neutral or muted, access to natural light is scarce, and increasing mail digitization practices are erasing the color within envelopes, turning letters and photographs into grayscale, scanned versions.
Introducing The Freewrite Project Zine
Home Prison & Justice Writing Works of Justice Introducing The Freewrite Project Zine The writings in this collection were done as part of a series of pilot writer’s workshops seeded by PEN America’s Prison and Justice Writing Program. For more than five decades, the program has worked to amplify and cultivate incarcerated writers through the written word. By providing resources and mentorship opportunities, we have helped incarcerated authors integrate into the broader literary community.
Turning Sentences Around
The clerk of the prison’s college computer lab handed me a book. Normally, he only handed me new college books every semester. He knew I took the art and craft of writing seriously, so he wouldn’t recommend I read a craft book that I’d feel was a waste of my time. But this one was different. On the cover were images of envelopes with prison return addresses, cut into the shape of butterflies. I thought it was aesthetically dope.
No Change in Sight
David Webb was awarded Honorable Mention in Fiction in the 2021 Prison Writing Contest. Every year, hundreds of imprisoned people from around the country submit poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and dramatic works to PEN America’s Prison Writing Contest, one of the few outlets of free expression for the country’s incarcerated population. This piece is also featured in Visiting the Blues, the 2021 Prison Writing Awards Anthology.
On Prison Art and Music
Home Prison & Justice Writing Works of Justice On Prison Art and Music Joseph Wilson and I sit at an antique Casio keyboard in the Sing Sing Correctional Facility music room. He’s hunched over the keys, concentrating deeply while playing a new song he’s composed. Somewhere in the middle he strikes a chord that feels both horribly wrong and deliciously sharp. The dissonant harmony breaks my expectations of where I thought the piece would go, triggering an instant, visceral emotional response.
Against Retribution: An Interview with Daniel Pirkel
Home Prison & Justice Writing Works of Justice Against Retribution: An Interview with Daniel Pirkel Daniel Pirkel’s essay, “The Unintended Consequences of Retributive Justice,” received a nonfiction honorable mention citation in the 2022 PEN Prison Writing Awards. The essay was published in Variations on an Undisclosed Location: 2022 Prison Writing Awards Anthology, which Pirkel was denied a copy of by the Parnall Correctional Facility in Michigan where he is incarcerated.
Unsealed: An Open Letter from No More Victims Road
Home Prison & Justice Writing Works of Justice Unsealed: An Open Letter from No More Victims Road By: Jess Abolafia, Antwann Lamont Johnson, Sr. Of the hundreds of addresses I come across on the envelopes from incarcerated people around the country, there is one street name in particular that has never left my mind: No More Victims Road.
Uprooting the Lie
I’ve been in one type of state-run institution or another since the age of 12. As a child, my behavior was so bad that my family would tell me I wasn’t going to make it to see 25. They weren’t completely wrong. Now, at the age of forty-three, the majority of my life has been spent behind bars. It’s not the death my family predicted, but it sure isn’t living. As a juvenile, I served five years for armed robbery. As an adult, I did another three years for the same thing.
Introducing Catherine LaFleur, the 2023-2024 Luis Angel Hernandez Poet Laureate with Exchange for Change and O, Miami
Home Prison & Justice Writing Works of Justice Introducing Catherine LaFleur, the 2023-2024 Luis Angel Hernandez Poet Laureate with Exchange for Change and O, Miami Earlier this year, Exchange for Change and O, Miami announced Catherine LaFleur as the 2023-2024 Luis Angel Hernandez Poet Laureate. Named for an incarcerated poet who passed away from cancer in 2018, the poet laureateship is an honorary two-year position awarded to an incarcerated poet within the Florida Department of Corrections.
Tommy Trantino on Perseverance and Protest
Home Prison & Justice Writing Works of Justice Tommy Trantino on Perseverance and Protest I was introduced to Tommy Trantino in a 2020 undergraduate capstone seminar, “Life Sentences: Literature of the Prison,” in The College of New Jersey’s Department of English. The seminar was primarily centered on memoirs and other autobiographical works written by system-impacted people, and explored the intersections of emancipatory writing and the injustices plaguing the legal system in the United States.
Lost Lifelines, and the Harmful Effects of Prison Mail Scanning
Home Prison & Justice Writing Works of Justice Lost Lifelines, and the Harmful Effects of Prison Mail Scanning I am constantly reminded of the importance of “snail mail” through my position at PEN America, as I’m greeted by a tall stack of envelopes sitting on my desk when I arrive at work each day.
The Legacy of Martin Sostre (1923-2015)
Home Prison & Justice Writing Works of Justice The Legacy of Martin Sostre (1923-2015) A Depends advertisement is considered “sexually explicit.” A map of Westeros “presents a security threat.” Allowing an incarcerated author to have a copy of their own published work risks the “good order” of a prison. Books in Spanish could “foment a prison uprising” because guards can not understand the language.
An Interview with Chicago Books to Women in Prison
Home Prison & Justice Writing Works of Justice An Interview with Chicago Books to Women in Prison Part of a loosely aligned network of autonomous prison book programs across the country, Chicago Books to Women in Prison (CBWP) is an all-volunteer group that distributes books free of charge to incarcerated women and trans people in state and federal prisons across the United States to better serve their needs and interests.
Unsealed: The Blood and Ink of the Prison Pen
Home Prison & Justice Writing Works of Justice Unsealed: The Blood and Ink of the Prison Pen By: Leo Cardez, Jess Abolafia Within carceral environments—fundamentally designed to surveil, punish, and silence—writing is an emancipatory endeavor. It is not only a common outlet of cathartic healing, but it has the ability to break through the isolation and opacity of carceral confinement by lifting the voices and lived experiences of people on the inside.
On Bridgeworks Oregon's "Prisons Have a Long Memory: Life Inside Oregon's Oldest Prison"
Home Prison & Justice Writing Works of Justice On Bridgeworks Oregon’s “Prisons Have a Long Memory: Life Inside Oregon’s Oldest Prison” Kyle Hedquist is standing at his cell window, looking through the rusty iron bars at the falling snow. It’s 4am and he’s made himself a cup of instant coffee using lukewarm water from his cell’s sink.
Where It Hurts: How Book Bans Restrict Access to Healthcare
Home Prison & Justice Writing Works of Justice Where It Hurts: How Book Bans Restrict Access to Healthcare “It’s coming out! Down there!” My 20-year-old handcuffed neighbor, Mina, says through clenched teeth as she passes my door to a mandatory disciplinary hearing. She’s been in prison half her life, entering juvenile at age ten and a half with a second grade reading level. Six years later, she was transferred from juvenile directly to adult solitary confinement. The reading level followed her.
The Speaking Archive: Words from the House of the Dead
Home Prison & Justice Writing Works of Justice The Speaking Archive: Words from the House of the Dead Archives are living and breathing representatives of forgotten voices, stories and spaces. When the archive speaks, collections come alive and legacies are preserved. Kevin Caplicki, Molly Fair, Dara Greenwald, and Josh MacPhee — founders of the volunteer-run Interference Archive — understand this.
What’s Mildred Taylor Got to Do With It?: Race, Prison Book Bans, and the Power in Storytelling
Home Prison & Justice Writing Works of Justice What’s Mildred Taylor Got to Do With It?: Race, Prison Book Bans, and the Power in Storytelling You’d hardly notice the barbed wire driving by. The building is inconspicuous, tucked in between the highway and a bank, surrounded by fast food and gas stations on a local route. It’s set back from the road, and the guard house is just a corrugated roof on skinny metal legs.
Introducing "Unsealed:" Inside the Letters of PEN America’s Prison and Justice Writing Program
Home Prison & Justice Writing Works of Justice Introducing “Unsealed:” Inside the Letters of PEN America’s Prison and Justice Writing Program Severed Sentences: The Precarious Process of Communication through the Walls In 2020, amidst a global pandemic and growing uncertainty, my English professor invited me to work on a book project with a woman who has been incarcerated for nearly 30 years after receiving a life sentence as a teenager.
Bell Gale Chevigny (1936-2021): Critical Thinking and Grace
Home Prison & Justice Writing Works of Justice Bell Gale Chevigny (1936-2021): Critical Thinking and Grace Professor and activist Bell Gale Chevigny (1936-2021) remained a central figure and mentor for PEN America’s Prison and Justice Writing Program since its founding in the early 1970s. Throughout her life, Bell taught in prisons, advocated for educational opportunities for incarcerated communities, and promoted the work of writers in prison throughout the country.
The Cop in Your Head: On Andy West’s “The Life Inside”
Home Prison & Justice Writing Works of Justice The Cop in Your Head: On Andy West’s “The Life Inside” The divides marked by prison walls—between criminal and not, flat assumptions of “good” and “bad,” freedom and captivity—become entrenched in the psyche of people who live within the harsh realities of the justice system daily.
Record Label Die Jim Crow Gives Incarcerated Artists the Spotlight
Home Prison & Justice Writing Works of Justice Record Label Die Jim Crow Gives Incarcerated Artists the Spotlight Press play on any Works of Justice episode released since March 2022, and you’ll hear the stimulating vibrations produced by an orchestra of guitar riffs, piano, and low hums.
A Funny Story
Home A Funny Story Nick Browning was awarded honorable mention in Fiction in the 2020 Prison Writing Contest. Every year, hundreds of imprisoned people from around the country submit poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and dramatic works to PEN America’s Prison Writing Contest, one of the few outlets of free expression for the country’s incarcerated population. This piece is also featured in Breathe Into the Ground, the 2020 Prison Writing Awards Anthology.
Break Out: A 2020 PEN America Prison Writing Awards Celebration
Home Break Out: A 2020 PEN America Prison Writing Awards Celebration In difficult times, we turn to the wisdom of writers. Join PEN America—in a special partnership with TheaterLab—in celebrating the release of the 2020 PEN America Prison Writing Awards Anthology.
Works of Justice: How to Write a Novel in a Month (While in Prison), Week 3
Home Prison & Justice Writing Works of Justice Works of Justice: How to Write a Novel in a Month (While in Prison), Week 3 By: Caits Meissner, Robert Pollock December 3, 2019 Works of Justice is an online series that features content connected to the PEN America Prison and Justice Writing Program, reflecting on the relationship between writing and incarceration, and presenting challenging conversations about criminal justice in the United States.
Works of Justice: How to Write a Novel in a Month (While in Prison), Week 2
Home Prison & Justice Writing Works of Justice Works of Justice: How to Write a Novel in a Month (While in Prison), Week 2 By: Caits Meissner, Robert Pollock November 15, 2019 Works of Justice is an online series that features content connected to the PEN America Prison and Justice Writing Program, reflecting on the relationship between writing and incarceration, and presenting challenging conversations about criminal justice in the United States.
The Named and the Nameless
The Named and the Nameless Illustration by Molly Crabapple, created as original cover art for the Prison Writing Awards Anthology, forthcoming September 2018. In this week’s special edition of the Illustrated PEN, Guest Editors Robert Kirby, Meg Lemke, and Whit Taylor, along with PEN America’s Prison Writing Program, present “The Named and the Nameless,” a series of illustrations that accompany winning manuscripts from the 2018 Prison Writing Contest.
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