Producer's Corner: If These Walls Could Talk

[Jones Franzel]

Hip Hop Night in the Dayroom

If These Walls Could Talk takes writings by the youngest members of America's prison system and, with the help of producer Susan Stone, "shoots their work into the sky" through audio, photography and the web. We were so bowled over by the work that we had to sit down for a virtual interview with participants to find out more.

Answers are from from Units 4 & 6 (the boyz in U-4 & U-6) Juvenile Justice Center, San Francisco.

GPRX: What drew you to writing poetry? How do you find an idea and grow it into a poem?

The Beat Within* (*a weekly writing workshop in juvenile halls throughout the country, which started in San Francisco) comes every week to the units. They provide the topics, the pencils and the paper. The topics help form ideas, and range from things like If We Could Rewind The Clock, to Holidays, or Our Families, or If You Really Knew Me....we talk together about what the topic of the day means to us, and sometimes it comes out a rap, a rhyme, or a short story. Our writings are turned into publications, including some of our illustrations, and the following week we see ourselves in print. That way we can reach out to other in juvenile hall beyond our individual rooms (cells), and know that we are not alone in our thoughts, hopes or dreams.

GPRX: How has the experience of writing and recording poetry affected you?

Through our writing we find that we have a voice when most of the time others here Inside (judges, lawyers, probations officers) speak for us. We read our work to each other, and learn how we see the world and how it sees us in different ways.

GPRX: Were there any surprises, challenges, or discoveries along the way?

That we need to tighten up the grammar, make sense in the sentence. That words have color and power. That you can enlighten, brighten, instruct, entertain..yell and scream...whisper and cry in your writing.

GPRX: How do you see writing playing a part in your life - both while in juvenile hall, and afterwards?

We aspire to the next life level, and want to take it higher. To higher education. Where our words can tell people who we are, and reveal us beyond the juvy record, the tatts, the metal.
Writing for our life. That's a line we read somewhere else but it works here, for us.

GPRX: Anything else you'd like us to know about the writing process, or the program in general?

The Beat Within really got us going with the pen and paper thing. But now we are working beyond The Beat workshops by writing plays and poems on our own, and through our classes here in Juvy in Frisco with great teachers (shout out to Megan and City Youth Now!). We have this website where we are sky-writing our work on the web (www.IfTheseWallsCouldTalk.org). Check it out. Stay tuned.

These walls talk!

We still belong to the world.

Learn more about If These Walls Could Talk, hear the work on PRX and sample some of the other amazing radio produced by incarcerated youth around the country.