Welcome back to this latest double issue, 25.27/28, of The Beat Within! We hope that our community of readers, writers, and supporters are staying safe and healthy as COVID-19 cases continue to rise across the country, and as our fight for a more equal and just world persists. As we’ve done before, we’re continuing to highlight the reflections of our student interns from Urban High School of San Francisco. These students have been working hard and diligently during their school semester to transcribe pieces for publication in The Beat Without. Below, Dabney describes how quarantine has prompted her to turn to poetry as an outlet, and how her appreciation for personal writing has grown since working with The Beat. In his reflection, we watch Luke’s mentality and consideration of incarceration and the justice system shift over time as he worked with us. Many, many thanks to Dabney and Luke, and all our interns at Urban High School. We hope they carry The Beat forward into the future with them! Â
I Hear You
Typing for The Beat Within has been a profound experience. There was no shortage of pieces that left me with goosebumps. Every time I am struck by how thoughtful and mature so many incarcerated people are. They have so much to share with their communities–so much to give back to their communities–and my stomach knots in frustration, sadness, and anger knowing these people are locked behind bars with sentences longer than I’ve been alive.
The typing that sticks with me most is a piece written by Aaron Priddy about sexual assault. When I read about Aaron’s trauma and feelings of powerlessness, I felt immediate empathy for him. I could only imagine how he needs love and care in his process of healing rather than incarceration and punishment. However, what makes me remember this piece so vividly is Aaron’s ability to empathize with his perpetrator. In his piece, he wonders if his perpetrator was harmed, and whether that harm led him to hurt others. It takes a great level of maturity and insight to be able to empathize with someone who has caused you so much harm. I haven’t even met Aaron–I know him only through one short piece he wrote in a Beat Within workshop–yet I admire his ability to empathize. I wish I could tell him about the deep, unforgettable impact his piece left on me, and how he inspires me to come into conversation with the “enemy-people†in my life (as I’ve heard someone say).
Sometimes, I would open my weekly packet and discover a familiar name. Typing multiple pieces by the same author was truly special, because I got to trace progression. There was one writer that was waiting to hear back from the legal system about their parole hearing. In one piece I typed, anticipation and uncertainty (and hope should I say?) permeated the page. The next piece I typed, this person was writing questions like, how do I make the right decisions now that I’ve been given a second chance? I realized with jumping joy, this person passed their parole hearing! Being able to read about this progression, and celebrate this person’s new opportunities in my own home, was one of the most special parts of typing. I felt truly connected as a reader and typer.
In these unprecedented times of quarantine, I’ve been looking to writing, poetry in particular, as an outlet to release some steam that builds up inside me. As I write more and more and realize how empowering it is to self-reflect in this way, I have more appreciation for all the incredible work The Beat Within is doing for incarcerated people and youth. I truly believe there is good in everybody. Immersed in the soul-crushing atmosphere in prisons, it is so important for incarcerated people to have outlets to process their emotions and feel that their experience does matter. My appreciation for how personal and empowering writing is grows every day.
I love typing for The Beat Within. Even though I can’t directly communicate with the authors of the pieces I type, I try to honor their pieces by lending my attention. When I type, I feel an ounce of connection to the authors, despite the fact that I can’t put a face to the name, that I don’t know where home is to them, and that I don’t know who they call family. I hear you, is what I want to say. The rest of society might not get to hear your story, but I get to. For that, I feel incredibly lucky. I want to express gratitude for the people who are strong enough to be vulnerable and pour themselves onto the page (or ten!). It is transformational as a reader, and I hope it is as a writer, too.
-Dabney, Urban High School, San Francisco, CA
From a New, Written Angle
I thought one of the most eye opening parts of the Beat Within was realizing how much insight you can get into the lives of a person incarcerated across the country from you from only a few pages of words. Before working with the Beat, I had taken a class at school called Voices of Incarceration. While it wasn’t a required class and originally I had signed up out of a slight interest, it ended up being the most memorable and life changing class I took during high school. We learned about the criminal legal system, talked with activists and incarcerated people, as well as visited San Quentin. For me, working with the Beat was an extension of this – a way to look at what I had previously learned from a new, written angle.
I loved the poems, but I was most moved by the letters that people had written to their families on the outside. They poured their minds and souls into these letters, and it felt like I was getting a small but refined glimpse into what their lives are like.
What was hardest for me when writing was to make sure I respected and preserved the author’s original intentions. I had to make a lot of decisions – when I wasn’t sure what a word said, I had to choose how to interpret it. I had to decide where to put spaces and capitalizations, and how to order the writing. It was stressful to know that I was going to be creating one of the versions of the writings that many people would see, and I didn’t want to interfere with the writer’s original visions.
I think one of the most valuable aspects of the Beat Within is how it humanizes incarcerated people. In a country where mass incarceration has been prevalent for decades, all the average American sees is what the media and the government provide to them: images and videos of people who were deemed bad by the law, and given a just punishment. In reality, this is so incredibly far from the truth. There are millions of people currently incarcerated in the US who are their own humans but are not being treated as such. The Beat Within helps to provide a window into the lives of these people.
What I most enjoyed about working with the Beat Within was the opportunity to do something meaningful in a time where we can’t go outside and do hands-on volunteer work. When you work with an organization in person, it can be much easier to see what you’re doing and who you’re helping. Online, it’s much harder, and it might feel like you’re not actually contributing to anything and that the restrictions of a pandemic have prevented you from doing any meaningful work. The Beat Within provided an opportunity for me to contribute to an organization and idea that I care about, in a way that I felt like I was able to actually provide some assistance.
-Luke, Urban High School, San Francisco, CA
We truly appreciate these two opening essays to our latest publication, they both truly set the tone, to a one of a kind publication that is full of thought provoking poetry, commentary, short stories and life stories by our numerous contributors, free and incarcerated, young and old. We are grateful to all you writers, artists, and those of you who have picked up this latest issue of writing and art from inside and beyond to read and draw inspiration from. As has been the case, for the last several-plus month, since mid-March, many of our writers are taking on topics that speak to the issues of our day. We truly honor and respect their courage and tip our hats to the powerful teachers – young and old – who have courageously stepped up to write and speak their truths. Thank you. We salute our dear friends inside San Quentin for doing just that too. Our thoughts and prayers are with all our friends on the inside.
Lastly, as many of you know, we have been doing our workshops through virtual learning – Zoom and Microsoft TEAM – workshops. This is nothing close to what we do when we visit the classroom, pre-COVID, but if this is the best alternative as we navigate this new world, we will take it, we are all learning to make the best of this new world we live in. We truly know firsthand, it is much more challenging for us facilitators, as well as for you writers, so thank you for taking the steps to write and embrace The Beat Within during these challenging times. This is a historical, yet tragic time in our history, and we are grateful to every single one of you who has been published during this period. Your words in this publication will be with us forever. Thank you. We hope more of you will step up and write, we have an audience eager to hear from you.
All the best to you and yours. Stay safe, be well…, reach out anytime, we’d love to hear from you.