OVER A DECADE IN PRISON… Finding Light in Dark Places
Text by Liza Jessie Peterson featured in Trace Magazine
It’s now been over a decade, fourteen years to be exact, since prison became an integral part of my professional life as an artist and educator. It was not some lofty idea of mine to give back to the community by teaching and performing in prison. In fact, prison wasn’t a part of my reality other than having my cousin Benji locked up (over fifteen years).
I linked up with a non-profit, family-run arts and literacy program that pays artists to teach their craft to students in various public schools throughout New York City. Since art in public schools has become damn near extinct, schools are more than happy to get art workshops for their students for several weeks and not have to pay for it. Hollywood wasn’t calling me enough, poetry readings weren’t paying enough, and I was tired of waitressing at shi-shi restaurants…so teaching poetry class it will be. Sign me up and cut the check!
The very first school I was assigned to teach was at Island Academy on Rikers Island with adolescent boys aged 16 to 18 years old. The idea of teaching in prison didn’t bother me none, didn’t excite me none, didn’t scare me none, and it didn’t conjure up feelings of making a difference in the lives of urban youth none. And I damn sure wasn’t on some ‘freedom writing, save black ghetto children’ mission. It was a way for me to stay connected to my art AND get paid. Butterflies didn’t set in until I was on the Q101 express bus to Rikers. Oh shit, suppose they not feeling me? Suppose I can’t get them to write, suppose I suck!
As soon as I entered the school floor I immediately saw my reflection walking down the halls. Every one of those boys looked like me, like somebody in my family, like somebody I knew in my ‘hood. Something happened that day and the weeks thereafter, an extraordinary connection occurred between me and those young brothers. It was real talk, real expression, real poetry, and real connection. Three weeks turned into three years, four days a week. To my surprise, I was inspiring them to write, and did they ever write! The honesty and creative genius that poured out of those young brothers was astounding to me. I was engaging a group of artists and wayward warriors who were in turn inspiring me to teach. They inspired me to research this prison system I found myself in. When I went online to see what the prison industrial complex was all about, what a fucking rabbit hole I discovered!
The more I found out, the more I was compelled to share this new information with my students so they could understand the wicked web they were caught up in. I wanted to pull them out of their narrow vision of “the ‘hood and chasing paper” and give them an aerial view of the entire chess board of a justice system that was pimping their pain, by feeding off of their poverty and gangster dreams. As I learned, I shared. Some days we wouldn’t write, we would just build and politic about life in the ‘hood, this country, the history and condition of Black and Brown people. Shit was thick, and still is.
Now the love of my life happened to be on parole at the time, which he soon violated, and got locked back up again. Every aspect of our relationship, from breaking up to reconciling, was forced to navigate through barbed wire, on the visiting room floor, in letters, with pictures, and pre-paid prison calls. My entire life was in prison, from teaching my boys at Rikers, to rushing home anticipating a letter from my man waiting for me in the mailbox, rushing upstairs to devour it, and answering the phone, excited to hear the automated voice on the other end say the words I have memorized to this day, “This is pre-paid call from a federal prison…this call is from, “hey baby”, dial 5 to accept this call.”
My whole life revolved around prison. Damn, this wasn’t the plan!
My meltdown led to the birth of my play, The Peculiar Patriot. I was talking to my best friend and fellow artist/poet, Tish Benson; I was on my pity pot complaining about how my life was immersed in prison, and how my life sucked, and how I didn’t ask for this prison shit, and how the prison system is so racist and unfair, and how horrible the guard was when I went to see my boo, and on and on and blah blah pity-pot-blah. Tish started laughing hysterically as I was crying, and managed to utter through her laughter “go write that shit down girl, you have a story to tell,” and she proceeded to hang the phone up on me! I wiped my tears, got my journal out and started releasing, and in what seemed to be a stream of consciousness, The Peculiar Patriot was born.
Over forty five prison performances later, “The Peculiar Patriot” is a passionate tour-de-force in the penitentiaries, as well as a major purpose in my life. Studying at The National Shakespeare Conservatory and with the illustrious acting coach Susan Batson has fine-tuned my acting chops, while performing The Peculiar Patriot in prison keeps me sharp. The play is a satirical love story that is mad funny and the post-show Q&A dialogue with the inmates is so powerful, sometimes it feels like church ‘cause the spirit is so high and the testimonies so real. Experiencing light in dark places inspires me. Hearing laughter inspires me. Knowing I have uplifted someone inspires me. Seeing potential inspires me. How have I inspired? I don’t know, all I know is, we are walking talking miracles, wounded and gorgeous, and in your face.