Reading Aloud in Kidjail
By Jill McDonough
The boys in my local juvie want to work one
on one, write stories, poems, mark up the stuff
I give them. More than one kid at a time’s less fun:
more fussing, more holding back to show how tough
they are. When one of them writes on the other’s paper
the germophobic one loses his shit; I get it, sit
between them while they write their poems. Later
I read them aloud so they can hear how good they are; it’s
like a magic trick, their words in my grown-up voice.
They still and listen, hear themselves, lean in on me
like children, because they are children. Two boys,
one on either side, a slow relax from anger in to breathe.
Their warm weights, cool of classroom, fresh pencils, stacks
of paper. Me feeling them thinking That sounds pretty good. Dag.
Jill McDonough is the author of Here All Night (Alice James, 2019), Reaper (Alice James, 2017), Where You Live (Salt, 2012), Oh, James! (Seven Kitchens, 2012), and Habeas Corpus (Salt, 2008). The recipient of three Pushcart prizes and fellowships from the Lannan Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fine Arts Work Center, the New York Public Library, the Library of Congress, and Stanford’s Stegner program, she taught incarcerated college students through Boston University’s Prison Education Program for thirteen years. Her work has appeared in Poetry, Slate, The Nation, The Threepenny Review, and Best American Poetry. She teaches in the MFA program at UMass-Boston and started a program offering College Reading and Writing in Boston jails. Her website is jillmcdonough.com.
Image from Ideas.TED.com.