I discovered a new blog by Free Minds Book Club & Writing Workshop. Free Minds describes its mission and blog as follows:

Free Minds uses books and creative writing to empower young inmates to transform their lives. All poems posted here were written by young men in the DC jail or federal prisons. The goal of this blog is for readers to provide encouragement and feedback for our young writers, and also to build connections with incarcerated Free Minds members and the outside world. This is often their first attempt at creative writing. Behind bars, they sometimes feel as though the world has forgotten about them. Our writers look forward to hearing how others have been affected by their writing. Every week we print out the comments and pass them along to the poets. This positive feedback helps them find their voices as writers and inspires them to continue writing.

Below is an example of a poem written by one of the young prisoners. Please take a moment to visit their blog and leave feedback for the young poets.

A Dropped Call?

Never one to jump to conclusions

I’m always willing to give a person the benefit of the doubt

Maybe they accidentally hung up

Perhaps their finger accidentally brushed up against the wrong button…

Yeah, that’s probably what happened

I’ll try again

Ring…ring…ring

Answering machine

Well damn, I know I’m not lunchin’

I just heard them answer the phone a minute ago when I called

I’ll try one more time

Ring…answering machine

Doesn’t get any clearer than that, oh well.

Wonder what’s for chow tonight?

Only if it were actually that simple

That would be great

But in reality, the rest of my day is defined by a storm of confusion

All of my doubts, fears and anxieties whirling around in my head

Like tree branches and back yard garbage cans in a hurricane

That big, bluish-black monster named Depression

Begins to creep and stalk me like a vulture in the desert

I’m fully aware of his big ugly presence

He’s as cold as ice

And the closer he gets, the more depleted I feel

I try to fight him, but I’m totally disarmed

And he continues to consume me whole, slowly but surely

All of a sudden, I feel exhausted and I have to lay down to sleep

I awake in the calm of my storm

Rain letting up, clouds clearing out, and the sun shining through

I bounce back

Because I have to

Never will I lose sight of the primary objective

Make it home in one piece with a sound mind

I will soldier through any and every situation prison throws at me

And come out of here better than I came in

I just can’t help but wonder

Was it a dropped call?

Then again, I know better