Our fifteenth anniversary program, “Inside Stories: Women´s Voices from Prison.” took place October 28th in the Skylight Room of the CUNY Graduate Center. The event was a true success: moving readings, informed discussion, a standing-room-only crowd. Bell Gale Chevigny and Jane Maher, co-facilitators, spoke from their considerable knowledge of prison issues. Bell is a member of the PEN Prison Writing Committee and editor of Doing Time: 25 Years of Prison Writing, a PEN American Center Prize Anthology; and Jane is director of the Pre-College Program for Marymount Manhattan College at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women, where she has taught literature and writing to student inmates for ten years.
Bell opened the event, I spoke about who we are (see “Introductory Remarks”), and two former prisoners read from their work. Sharon White, who served time at Bedford Hills, a state prison, read energetic, imaginative poetry. Susan Rosenberg, incarcerated in a federal prison until her release, read two powerful passages from her forthcoming memoir. Sharon´s poem “Same Ole Same Old” was a special hit with the audience. Susan read an unforgettable description of terrible brutality that she witnessed in a jail where she was being held—and how, in the silence that followed, she recited from her cell Langston Hughes´ poem “Harlem” (“What happens to a dream deferred?”) and another woman prisoner began singing “Amazing Grace,” with the others joining in one by one.
After Sharon and Susan discussed various issues with each other, Bell, and Jane, there was a discussion with the audience. Participants included seminar members Sherry Gorelick, Louise Bernikow, and Blanche Wiesen Cook. Several in the audience offered to tutor or teach in prison, and some of the students said they felt inspired to seek out further information and explore the possibilities of doing volunteer work. The facts presented were mind-boggling—for instance, the extent to which law libraries and college programs in U. S. prisons have been ended; recent increases in the number of women prisoners; the high percent of women prisoners who are there because of nonviolent drug-related offenses; and the fact that the U. S. has close to 2,200,000 people behind bars, a much higher percent of the population than in other Western countries.
Bell and Dorothy O. Helly co-chaired the committee that planned the event, greatly helped by Jane. Dorothy served as liaison to our Graduate Center sponsors, the Center for the Humanities and the Center for the Study of Women and Society. We are especially grateful to Aiobheann Sweeney, Deputy Director of the Center for the Humanities, for arranging publicity, room, and refreshments. Sydney Ladensohn Stern and Trudy Balch, assisted by someone from the Feminist Press, helped sell books at a literature table.
We were glad to have the opportunity to do an outreach program like this for our fifteenth anniversary and for the chance to work with our generous CUNY Graduate Center sponsors. Thanks to all of you who attended.
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