Day 148: Writing Down the Bones to a California prison

Well, this was an interesting opportunity.  On a listserv I belong to for the Miami University English Department, a forwarded email came across that piqued my interest.  An inmate from CTF North, a prison on Soledad, California, wrote a pretty passionate plea for books about writing.  He wrote that the prisoners "rely on the written word to give their existence some relief."  He went on to say that some prisoners would even like grammar books (imagine that) to be better able to compose thoughtful and grammatically correct letters home.  In prison, he says, "there are journalers and doodlers and poets.  There are essayists and
short story writers."  The email reminded me how figures like Malcolm X and Jimmy Santiago Baca taught themselves to read and write in prison, a feat that seems almost impossible to those of us in run-of-the-mill America.

The only pat of this that I don't enjoy is my lingering fear that the email is a straight-out lie.  So many items that come across email are fraudulent that I would be a fool not to consider the possibility.  I even Googled the prison this morning--it's real.  And I inspected the email for tell-tale signs of fraud--none.  Giving away a copy of Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones also causes me no pain (besides the cost and time of the mailing).  I have access to the book at school, and I actually own more than one copy myself. 

I just hope this donation turns out to be true.