Behind-Bars Bards Find Writing Poetry an Outlet for Tangled Emotions

In a fit of anger, 18-year-old Joshua McMurphy shot another teenager to death this year.

His anger erupts in a different way these days: as hip-hop poetry written in the Shoshone County Jail.

“I know what I did. I know what I done,” McMurphy’s poem “Stressin’ ” begins. “They say that’s the price you pay, when you carry a gun.”

Poetry, at least the printable kind, isn’t usually a product of the county slam. But a group of behind-bars bards meet twice a week inside the jail in a sort of creative writing program.

Some of their work has been published in a local literary magazine, with more to come. In the poems, the inmates ruminate about freedom, fear and living without women.

The program was started by Mike Shaw of Kellogg, Idaho, a teacher’s aide for North Idaho College. He was helping inmates get high school equivalency diplomas when he saw that some had a need to express themselves.

Last year, he offered to send any inmate poetry to The Voice, a monthly literary magazine produced in the Silver Valley.

“The next time I went over there, all the prisoners had something they’d written,” Shaw said. “They just all loaded me down with poems.”

True to his word, Shaw got his friend Lake Puett to publish some under the heading “Voices Inside.”

During a recent class, seven men wearing orange prison clothes sat around a pingpong table in the recreation room to share their work.

McMurphy, of Priest River, asked if it would be all right if he read several poems.

“We got nothing but time, man,” replied Aaron Ayala, 30, who is serving two to five years for grand theft.

As McMurphy read, the crash of steel doors reverberated off concrete walls, making it tough to hear. But there was applause from the others when he ended.

“Rap and hip-hop are the truest music in the world,” said McMurphy, who is serving eight to 15 years for voluntary manslaughter in the April shooting death of Randy Reynolds, 18, after the two exchanged words in a parking lot in Oldtown, Idaho.

McMurphy was a self-described member of the Priest River Crips and had gang regalia with him. He told law officers he’d been threatened by members of the rival Bloods gang in the town of 1,500 people.

He’s a devotee of slain rapper Tupac Shakur, “the greatest that ever lived,” McMurphy said.

In the future he wants a recording career, to get his message to a wider audience.

“I don’t think the state of Idaho appreciates what I’m saying,” McMurphy said.

Writing is a tonic for many of the men.

“It helps me personally from exploding or breaking down,” Ayala said. “The only counselors we have are each other in the cell.”

Asked if he thought the writing would look favorable to a parole board, he said: “I pray to God it helps.”

Dan Henderson is serving a six-year sentence for writing bad checks. His poem “51526” appeared in the October edition of The Voice.

“Good day, I am 51526. Here I am. I live the gantlet which is known as life,” the poem said.

Sheriff’s Lt. Frank Bega, who runs the jail, supports the writing program.

“Anything that keeps their hands moving and their minds busy is a good idea,” Bega said. “Sitting on a metal bench 20 hours a day is not a good way to spend life.”

Shoshone County has just 13,000 people, and is nestled in the economically ailing Idaho Panhandle, where the silver mining industry has long been in decline.

As a way to meet law enforcement expenses, the jail accepts inmates from overflowing Idaho state prisons. Currently, 19 of the 47 inmates inside the jail are from state prisons.

But unlike state prisons, the small jail doesn’t have job and recreation opportunities, leaving inmates with little to do. In state prisons, inmates can work in the kitchen, as janitors or other jobs. They also have numerous education offerings.

That’s why the writing program is so important.

“It’s hard to feel like you’re accomplishing anything in here,” said Brad Tranmer, 38, who is serving time for operating a methamphetamine lab. He’s due to be released March 22, 2001.

“It’s something productive, rather than being bumps on a log,” Henderson said. “It’s a way to better yourself.”

“This is not a glorious life,” he added.

Shaw said he’s interested in steering some inmates into more autobiographical writings, to explore how they ended up in jail and what they have learned from the experience.

“I don’t critique any of it,” Shaw said. “I’m grateful they are expressing themselves.”

Shaw said he types up the manuscripts, occasionally cleaning up “incoherent punctuation,” and e-mails the product to The Voice.

Puett was happy to get the work for her monthly magazine, which is entirely written by amateurs.

“It was right up our alley,” she said.

The Voice started nine years ago, and is supported by advertising. It is distributed free throughout northern Idaho and the Spokane area.

Although Puett will print the occasional swear word, “if it’s violent or distasteful, I wouldn’t print it.”

Some of the stuff is pretty strange, she said. “It’s printed as the work of guys in jail.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Poetic Justice

Excerpts from poems written by inmates at the Shoshone County Jail:

Just sittin in my jail cell

thinking ‘bout you

and all the times we had together

cause you my crew

Mendoza, you and me,

we been down since day one,

remember way back in junior high,

hip-hop music, playin’ girls,

we used to have fun.

From “Fo My Crew,” by Joshua McMurphy, serving time for voluntary manslaughter

*

I am alone and incarcerated, just a fallen thief, for a car.

As I now awaken to learn that this path in life is not for me.

If I could change the hand of time, I would put back what was

wrong and follow the correct way of life.

By Byron Crofts, 20, convicted of car theft

*

The skies are gray

The leaves are brown

Everything is dead

All around

Here I sit

Day after day

Nothing to do

Nothing to say.

By Antonio Torres, serving time for delivery of a controlled substance

*

Sullen excruciating pain from within.

Riddled by a devious, misguided past,

never ceasing to exist.

Just to live another day, another lesson.

Time fades into one network of mazes, faces.

Slapping my face with honor and respect.

A bitter taste in my mouth, the harsh realm.

The day, alas, terrorizing voices killed.

Flowing no longer, I lay silently still.

By Jose Chavez, 21, serving time for accessory to burglary