How Long Has It Been Since You Smelled a Flower?

April 16, 2023

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April 16, 2023

a project of ServiceSpace

Tonight I choose to howl:
a song, a prayer
in the language of the lost.

- Michael Small -

How Long Has It Been Since You Smelled a Flower?

"For forty years I have worked at the nexus where language intersects with the lives of prison inmates, and it has proven to be one of the most exciting intersections imaginable...Since 1974 I have directed a number of prison writing workshops, all for male prisoners, in the Arizona State Prison. The writing that is collected in this issue of Orion was selected from that of the hundreds of writers who have participated in these programs. For me, reading the creative writing of the inmates I have worked with is often like listening to a man gasping for air while dying. The federal prison where I now work was obviously designed for the purpose of keeping inmates in a confined area, but also for keeping them from having any experience of the natural world, of substituting a sterile environment for the real one." More in this powerful post with an introduction by the late Richard Shelton. { read more }