Literary Hub
Since my first visit to Parchman to teach writing and literature in 2019, I have come to see prison writing as a unique body of literature that offers a commentary on the conditions that exist broadly in American society, specifically in the Mississippi Delta. The themes of the prison writing I have encountered flow seamlessly between poverty, abuse, education, and mental health, all issues that affect the lives of people in the Delta. As one prisoner wrote, “Poverty comes with an entourage” that includes “tragedy, crime, shame, pain and death. All of which I have gotten to know on a first-name basis.”