spring Feature 2016 // incarcerated writers
"At Duende, we believe that words have the ability to transcend figurative walls of class, race, gender, sexual orientation, as well as literal, concrete ones. The work that we’ve chosen to feature in this issue gives us hope. Hope that feelings of rage, desperation, helplessness, hopelessness, frustration—feelings that perhaps caused these crimes to be committed in the first place—can be channeled into art, creativity, and expression. So, dear reader, please approach these pieces with an open mind, and help us to celebrate that hope."
- A Note from the Editor, Amy Sterne
MUMIA ABU-JAMAL
// CLASS WAR AGAINST YOUTH
essay
"They will enter a system that profits from their every hour of misery.
They will feed a system that calls itself 'corrections,' yet outlaws any education beyond a G.E.D."
LESMES CASERES // WINDED
// RAINEY'S REVENGE
non-fiction & poetry
"I wait for her to answer the phone and say, 'Hello,' my head hung like a limp flag waiting for the wind."
-Winded
PATRICIA PREWITT // SNOW DAY
poetry
"Before other women's children called me mom,
We dove and slid over back roads, narrow bridges"
BRIAN BATCHELOR // THE CONVICT
// THE WINDS' OWN PRIVATE
THOROUGHFARE
// SHADOWBOXING
// BLOOD BLOSSOM
poetry
"stiff bed adorned with blanket-itch
and plastic pillow crackling like snow
crust, but each soft in sleep" - The Convict
SAMMIE WERKHEISER // COLD WAFFLING
// CHICKEN ADOBO
// PINK AND BLUE
// ANNOUNCEMENT (SOMETHING THAT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN)
poetry
"I imagine a hug she doesn’t stiffen for.
I pretend she lets me kiss her temple
in the sweet place where forehead bends to braid."
- Chicken Adobo
CLAY HOWARD // JANUARY 2015
fiction
"Rumor is that he cut himself and strangled himself with a home-made noose. Applying just the right method, it seems."
ARTHUR LONGWORTH // NIGHT
non-fiction
"the barely contained breathless feeling of suffocation that brings him here every night."
JUSTIN MONSON // THE YOUTH EQUATION
hybrid
"Into the cube comes the whiskered face
of a kid with not enough questions
and too much time to ask them."
TAKIA "JUDAH" PARHAM // TOUR #1
// GHAZAL FOR PRISON
// PHONE BOOTHS
poetry
"It was losing mama that really
put the needle on the record of my blues."- Tour #1
