Welcome back, readers and writers of The Beat Within! We’re thrilled to be with you and to present another outstanding publication of writing and artwork from our incarcerated community members near and far.
For this issue’s editorial note, we’re inviting three of our interns from Urban High School of San Francisco and their teacher, Courtney Rein, to share their perspectives on transcribing for The Beat Without, the back section of our magazine dedicated to featuring the voices of incarcerated adults. Courtney is also our lead facilitator for workshops in San Quentin State Prison and Central California Women’s Facility.
Please join us in welcoming Courtney and three of her students to our editorial section!
Highlights
One of the highlights of my week for the last six months has been traveling to the Headlands room of our Urban School campus and settling in with six to eight student transcribers of Beat Within writings. We often start our meetings with a check-in question, whether it’s sharing your most recently listened-to song on Spotify, or our go-to gas station/road trip food purchase, or what’s been a memorable experience of late. And some of our group-mates are dedicated to bringing excellent snacks, which also helps.
At first we did some helpful support with getting caught up on The Beat Without submissions — whether that meant responding to submissions, sending out copies of the magazine to interested writers, or sharing the sad news of David Inocencio’s passing with far-flung members of our community who hadn’t heard the news. We were able to send many people copies of the beautiful Mission Local memorial that honored David’s life and work.
Once we’d gotten caught up, we turned our attention to transcribing the writing coming out of San Quentin State Prison and Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla, CA. We’ve grown familiar with particular voices who write in, whether it’s John Liu’s cogent commentaries from San Quentin, or the vivid stylings of “The Lyrical Miracle,” or Douglas Dawkins’ moving poems encouraging the youth.
A highlight for me, as the faculty facilitator for this group, has been participating in Beat Within prompt-sharing with these thoughtful and generous students. We were able to talk about what was on our bucket lists, or imagine conversations we wanted to have with other people, or even just share our favorite books.
It can be rare in a pressurized academic setting like our school to find ways to just pause and inhabit our shared humanity, and The Beat Within’s prompts invited us to do just that. It’s one of the most magic aspects of The Beat Within’s work, in my experience: that it helps us find one another right we need each other most.
-Courtney Rein, English Teacher and The Beat Within facilitator
Moved by Their Writing
Transcribing for The Beat Within has been a very eye-opening experience for me. I’ve always taken much of the American prison system for granted, and not put much thought into it. It hasn’t been until this year, with writing in hand, that I’ve fully been able to ingest and take in their writing.
Whether it be the Lyrical Miracle, Frederick Mason, Raymond White Jr, or so many others, transcribing the works has put a focus on self-improvement, pain, and hope that moved me and even brought a tear to my eye. In particular, I was moved by hearing about David, and the impact he made on so many lives.
I’m extremely grateful that I could be presented with this opportunity to help The Beat Within.
-Elliott, Urban High School of San Francisco
Finding Community
When I first signed up for The Beat Within, I wasn’t expecting to find much community within the group, but through the past twelve weeks I have grown closer with the other students in the group. I don’t think I would have signed up for an upcoming school trip to Mississippi for social justice, which is something I am really looking forward to.
I love reading insights of the writers and having discussions about the things they have written, whether its frustration at the justice system or admiration for the eloquence and unique style of each piece. The Beat Within has, for the past twelve weeks, been the highlight of my week, and I’m so glad I signed for the class.
-Deja, Urban High School of San Francisco
Seeing Emotional Connections
Transcribing for The Beat Within has shown me a lot about reflection and gratitude. In my life as a teenager at a private school, it can sometimes feel hard to be grateful for small things like having conversations with my family.
Reading Beat Within pieces about gratitude — specifically gratitude for things that often get pushed aside in my life — made me realize how important those things are. I’m not saying that I’m constantly grateful for my mom and dad and that we don’t argue at all, but having this experience every Thursday reminds me to be grateful for things that any other day of the week seem small.
I’m so astonished at the honesty of The Beat Within writers, and I feel so honored that I get to read about their lives. I’ve read a lot of letters thanking David or Courtney (my teacher), and seeing how much of an impact they’ve had on people’s lives is very inspiring. More than that, seeing the emotional connections that they’ve formed reminds me again to be grateful for the people I have in my life.
Having conversations about The Beat Within prompts with the other people in my class has been very meaningful and fun. I’m the only freshman in a class of sophomores, so I don’t interact with them very much outside of this class. Talking about things that I wouldn’t think to talk about even with my friends – like bucket lists and inspiring quotes – let me learn completely random, sometimes funny and sometimes deep things about people I don’t know very well.
-Lila, Urban High School of San Francisco
We extend our utmost gratitude to Courtney and her students for their time and dedication throughout the school year to help make The Beat Within possible. We look forward to resuming our partnership with them in the fall!
And, of course, we extend our gratitude to our writers for their trust, commitment, and courage in sharing their truths with us. We are here for you, and we celebrate the range of emotion, perspective, and opinion each of you hold. Thank you, and we hope that you enjoy this latest issue of The Beat!