2018 Massachusetts Poetry Festival

Through Barbed Wire, a program created by Arnie King to bring the voices of human beings held in chains in Massachusetts, out of captivity and into our shared communities. It is a sustained effort to help nurture and maintain the flow of healthy relationships across nocuous barriers during the incarceration period. Prisoners’ poetry reveals the truth about the practice of locking folks away for their mistakes and illnesses, how they struggle to remain human during the incarceration period, and that humanistic change is long overdue to make our communities safer. We will read a selection of 5-7 works of poetry written by folks in Massachusetts prison cells. Then we'll distribute index cards and pencils so that listeners may write responses to poems. We'll read a few responses and ask to keep them to send to the corresponding writers, but we'll also return responses if a listener prefers.