One Foot

One foot in front of the other.  Today I was humbled and honored to sit with a group of 6 men and their wonderful instructor, Michele, for a session of the Penned Thoughts Writer's Group at the Oregon State Penitentiary.  For over 2 hours we talked, laughed and wrote.  We shared thoughts about writing, life and what it's like to eat Thanksgiving dinner inside a maximum security prison, year after year.  These men wake up each day and, putting one foot in front of the other, they make the most of the circumstance they find themselves in.  It's not an easy journey.

Michele has been leading this group of men since 2011 and some of the writers have been on the journey since the beginning.  We studied a series of poems about New York (a nod to my home state!) and then wrote and shared our own draft poems.  The poetry these men produce is amazing and I've been thinking about it all day.  The writers produced an anthology of poems several years ago.  James, one of the contributors said "Poetry enables me to breathe in a prison atmosphere that would otherwise be devoid of oxygen, and in here, with almost half my life locked tightly behind steel bars, that is the difference between living and merely existing." 

I think poetry can be that difference for all of us...