After my divorce, I took a job teaching poetry to inmates in the Massachusetts prison system. By then, my daughter and I had moved into a large, creaky house in Cambridge with two other single moms and their children. Looking back, I can honestly say that life in that big house could seem as dark and dangerous as the rigors and uncertainties of life in prison.

THIS IS PART 3 of an EIGHT-PART STORY

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8

Group therapy three times a week seemed like a lot, but I agreed to go, even though most of the time I sat there like a lunk and didn’t say anything. The problem was I really needed to be home making dinner for my daughter, but whenever I pointed that out the group would chorus: “No! You need to be here in order to become the best parent you can be!’

Which meant that while I was driving to and from Newton, sitting in a carpeted room for an hour as people discussed their phobias or the problems they were having with their ex-husbands or ex-wives, Jofka was being picked up from daycare by a babysitter who took her to her own house and fed her dinner. For a two-year-old that was an incredibly long day. Not to mention, a confusing one.

It was confusing to me, too. I would sit in the group and say nothing about what was going on in my life, while, in fact, I worked a terrifying job and was growing increasingly out of control and depressed. No one had really prepped me about the dos and don’ts of teaching in prison. Instinctively, I knew to wear baggy clothing, big sweaters, shirts and pants that hid my frame. I pulled my hair back into a tight ponytail and eschewed makeup. Although trembling inside, I forced a look of confidence onto my face.

Three times a week I visited three different prisons, all of them maximum security. As the gates clanged shut behind me, I’d tell myself, You can do this, you can do this, but, of course, I wasn’t convinced I could.

What did I know about the American prison system? Nothing. I’d lived outside of the States for eight years, and was a bit of a stranger in my own land. So a guard would lead me into a classroom and one by one the prisoners, my students, would be brought in, most with smiling, Hey Teach looks on their faces. The surprising thing was how much they knew about me without my divulging a single word about my history. They knew, for instance, that I’d just returned from a sojourn in England and that I was a writer and single mom. I, in turn, knew very little about them. They were a mix of white and black, large and small, skinny and fat, meek and aggressive, angry and sweet, talented and lacklustre, calm and crazy. They would bring me reams and reams of poetry, essays, private sketches, short stories, all of which I had to fastidiously go through to see if there was anything remotely publishable. Some would bring me no work at all, just happy to be out of their cells. But here’s the deal: I was not allowed to discuss with them the nature of their crimes or what they’d done to get them there. Frequently I’d learn via via that the sweetest-looking, the most ardent and hardworking of my students, was a hardcore murderer or rapist, and I’d just have to rein in my curiosity and live with that.

Cover Image: Umanoide (Unsplash)

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