Gwendolyn Brooks’s “To Prisoners” was published in To Disembark (Third World Press, 1981). We are currently in the midst of a global pandemic that is ravaging people and communities across the world. One particularly vulnerable group is incarcerated people. Some leaders are employing mass release for public health. While others are letting incarcerated people get sick and die.

“To The Prisoner” is encouragement for the incarcerated and an exhortation to those of us on the outside to pay attention and to fight alongside those who are inside for their freedom.

Here’s the action I am asking you to take: 1. Read “To Prisoners”. 2. Film yourself reading the poem. 3. Post your reading on social media using the hashtag #FreeThemAll4PublicHealth this week. 4. Tag the Governor in your state with your reading. We want them to release incarcerated people for their safety and for our community’s safety. 5. Invite others in your networks to do the same.

If you are interested in listening to people including those who are formerly incarcerated discuss the poem, you can do that here.

TO PRISONERS

I call for you cultivation of strength in the dark.
Dark gardening
in the vertigo cold.
In the hot paralysis.
Under the wolves and coyotes of particular silences.
Where it is dry.
Where it is dry.
I call for you
cultivation of victory Over
long blows that you want to give and blows you are going to get.

Over
what wants to crumble you down, to sicken
you. I call for you
cultivation of strength to heal and enhance
in the non-cheering dark,
in the many many mornings-after;
in the chalk and choke.