And, It Is

by | Aug 26, 2023 | Detention Center Writing Contests, Poetry

by Ali A.

First place winner, Poetry, Heard/Alexandria Detention Center writing contest, July 2023

(Typed story appears after photo)

B

But, in nature, you always knew/These truths that now you eschew

Spontaneous form and voluptuous curvature/Motifs repeated evergreen from root structure

To odes in nervous human endocrine/Over time that mind that you weaned

Deaf to euphorious harmonies and the Chorus/All thing exclaiming in praise, ‘Adore Us!’

The veins of my wrists blossom and sprout/Blindness compels you to shout

Five-branched canopies in orchestrated complexity/and webbed with poetry

Can disconcerting violence deny/buried seeds their memory of the sky?

Can -ceration erase from me/the lakes or the rivers or the sea?

When I was begotten by the Euphrates/Along it, petal-crowned ancients that raised me

And I flow through the Nile/Collecting Israel’s histories in the meanwhile

Pleiades herself pierced a crack in my cell/to speckle my cheek with her secrets to tell

The weight of squared cages and degreed angles/Cannot force a divorce from my conjugal

inseparable unity with the Natural/traces of the pastoral embedded in my auricle

Perfectly straight lines of cinderblock and concrete/Calculated and approximated for spiritual defeat

Compounded obesity of bloated empire/Iron gear for iron men in iron spires

Cannot overpower the white Song like a roar/Mighty, that carves seabed from seashore

‘Bel’ And, it is/Bare-footed Bedouins

Across the sandy sandscape traversed/The whitling echoes of barren deserts

Clear heavens and dunes of the earth/through realms composed by verse

From heat smelting and amalgamating/Spring forth the cradles of Revelation

After one-hundred generations/Purified by deprivation

Undoing the pretenses of education/Nothing to interfere with contemplation

Then, it is.  Finally-quiet/An ecstatic charged silence

Listen . . . weaving existence is rhapsodic/Every stomata chanting cacophonic

The entire emerald planet rings harmonic/scrambled wild life in phonics

The rhyme scheme of this world/By His Voice that is only heard

By our recitation of His Words/that leave no injustice undisturbed

Primordial electrons in a cloud/Gossiping unborn galaxies’ vibrations aloud

The undying resistance of a martyr uncowed/As she prepares her own burial shroud

The excitement of a virginal wedding chamber/Last living specimen encased ears in amber

From which all of us sprang/From which every veritone and tenor rang

The quantum alphabet of creation apprehended/So that everything would be suspended

The totality of the cosmos, unfettered/it all strung between only two letters

When silent crowds gather at a disconcert/Solitary cells cradle us like a desert

Then, it is, Finally – / quiet.

E

Poor to the Wealthy

by | Aug 26, 2023 | Detention Center Writing Contests, Poetry

by Candie Calix

Poetry, Heard/Alexandria Detention Center writing contest, July 2023

(Typed version appears below the photo)

How Do You Let Go Of The Pain

The Scars Are Way Too Deep

Your Heart has a permanent Stain

And There Are Secrets You Still Keep . . .

Then you get locked up & put out of sight

You try to turn off right away

But your soul is starting an inner fight

You have a purpose they say . . .

Looking around are you talking to me?

No way not with all my sin

You got it wrong it can’t be

I always lose never win . . .

How could God want me

Better yet My Child how could I not

I felt that inner voice plea

Thats why I had you get caught . . .

For when the test is over it will make your testimony

Oh OK yeah right

To me that couldn’t have sounded more phony

Poor to the Wealthy

And I launched into fight or flight . . .

The Conviction in my heart grew

A mustard seed of faith they say

And I just knew

I needed to try his way . . .

There is no pain from you he can’t take

He is called the Chain Breaker for a reason

That’s why he died on the stake

He carries us through the Bad Seasons . . .

Baby Steps is a start

Remember the sick need the Dr. not the healthy

And From your side he will never part

Because his love is free from the . . .

Poor to the Wealthy

It’s All in the Details, part 2

by | Aug 1, 2023 | Creative Writing, Non-fiction

By Joseph Mark Dorsey II and Eric Green

 Arlington County Detention Facility, July 17, 2023

Two more authors shared a meaningful event in their life, using details of time, place, surroundings, and their emotions and feelings. That’s a lot of detail, and our writing teacher Alexa Fleming guided them through it. Mr. Dorsey, an artist, writes about his high school and college graduations. Mr. Green takes us with him as he describes the events leading up to the birth of his daughter.

Mr. Dorsey:

Mr. Green:

It’s All in the Details

by | Jul 20, 2023 | Creative Writing, Non-fiction

By Charles Hall, John Parker, and Moika Nduku

Arlington County Detention Facility, July 17, 2023

As part of our creative writing series, our writing teacher Alexa Fleming emphasized the importance of details. For this writing exercise, she told them, center on the importance of employing details in everyday life — how these elements add interest, color, and context; make conversation accurate and interesting; and are imperative in improving memory and focus. Memory and focus, she added, are the two components that are backbones of success.

Just look at the level of detail in their essays:

Charles Hall

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

John  Parker

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Moika Nduku

 

 

 

Jailhouse Rock

by | Jul 20, 2023 | Singing

July 2023: It’s a little known secret, but our singing teacher Bharati Soman and our executive director lead a karaoke night at the Alexandria Detention Center every summer evening on Wednesdays. We began on June 7 and end on August 30. It’s been quite an adventure, and we didn’t expect such a positive response. (I say “we” loosely. Bharati does the work and I, the ED, sing loudly and badly). A few of the guys show up faithfully and have really become comfortable singing and soloing. A few sang in high school choirs and it shows. They still have the pipes! I imagine them telling their story to Simon Cowell when they are released one day. City

We can’t take our phones inside and record our amazing singers, so we’re posing in front of the gate. Bharati is on the left, holding her all-important pitch pipe and I’m on the right.