Title: Doing time : twenty-five years of prison writing /
Authors: Chevigny, Bell Gale.; PEN America.
Publisher: Arcade Pub. : Distributed by Time Warner Trade Pub.,
Year: 1999
Subjects: Prisoners' writings, American.; Prisoners United States Literary collections.; Prisons United States Literary collections.; American literature
Abstract: ""Doing Time," For the prison writers whose work is included in this anthology, it means more than "serving a sentence"; it means staying alive and sane, preserving dignity, reinventing oneself, and somehow retaining one's humanity."--BOOK JACKET. "For the last quarter century the prestigious writers' organization PEN has sponsored a contest for writers behind bars to help prisoners face these challenges. The contest honors the best short stories, plays, essays, and poems among hundreds submitted annually by men and women nationwide. Bell Chevigny, a writer herself and a former prison teacher, has selected the best of these to create Doing Time - a timely, beautiful, sometimes devastating, but vital work, which demonstrates resoundingly that prison writing is a vibrant branch of American literature."--Jacket.
Contents: Foreword / Sister Helen Prejean -- Introduction / Bell Gale Chevigny -- Initiations. Prison letter / M. A. Jones -- Siempre / William Aberg -- Dog star desperado / William Orlando -- How I became a convict / Victor Hassine -- Arrival / Judee Norton -- Time and its terms. Reductions / William Aberg -- Where or when / Jackie Ruzas -- An overture / M. A. Jones -- Vivaldi on the far side of the bars / M. A. Jones -- Killing time / Roger Jaco -- After almost twenty years / Chuck Culhane -- There isn't enough bread / Chuck Culhane -- The manipulation game : doing life in Pennsylvania / Diane Hamill Metzger -- Giving me a second Chance / Larry Bratt -- Myths of darkness : the Toledo madman and the ultimate freedom / J. R. Grindlay -- Routines and ruptures. Spring / Michael Hogan -- Autumn yard / Chuck Culhane -- Letters come to prison / Jimmy Santiago Baca -- Trina Marie / Lori Lynn McLuckie -- After lights out / Barbara Saunders -- poem for the canguero in D yard / Raymond Ringo Fernandez --