Prisoner Express Is Designed to Bring You Opportunities for Creative Self

PRISONER EXPRESS NEWSLETTER FALL 2011 Prisoner Express is designed to provide you with only 3 reasons. If you want to be reinstated please let me opportunities for creative self-expression, educational know. materials as well as a vehicle to bring your ideas, Reason 1- We have not heard from you in 8 writings and artwork out from behind the walls and into months. As I get ready to send this newsletter I check to ―free society‖. We can do this in a variety of ways, and I see when I last got mail from any of you. If you have rely on you who are reading this to help continue to written something since Feb 11 to us you stay current, create and reinvent this program so that it continues to and will receive our mailing. It is up to you to write serve you while also highlighting the humanity of every so often. Returning the registration form or a short incarcerated men and women. note telling us what programs you want to participate in, is enough to keep you registered to receive the For those of you new to the program I‘d like to newsletter. introduce myself and then return back to the theme of Reason 2- If the previous letter we send you this program, its‘ purpose and your role in creating it. bounces back to us we remove you from the current list. My name is Gary and for the past 10 years I have been If you see someone down the way getting mail from us co-creating Prisoner Express with those of you who are that you think should also come to you send us a note writing to me and participating in this project. and most likely we will correct some address mistake I work in a small library, ―Durland Alternatives and get you back on the list. Library‖, on the Cornell University campus. Over the Reason 3-You send us a letter telling us you no years the library‘s mission and focus has evolved, and longer want to participate. Hopefully this means you are currently it is stated to be ―The Durland Alternatives released, but it could mean our program in no longer Library is dedicated to providing free and open access to interests you. Money is tight so I so much prefer to materials expressing viewpoints and information not spend it on folks who follow through on the programs readily available through the mainstream publications they join. and mass-media sources. We are committed to providing Think of us having a big pie. The more ways we information and educational materials to underserved slice it the less there is for each of us. The more we can and incarcerated people.‖ share resources the bigger pieces I can send out. So While the library is unable to provide any please share whatever of our material you are allowed to funding for the Prisoner Express project, I am able to use share with others. This is especially important regarding some of my staff time and the time of student workers to any book mailings we do. The book mailing program has manage the project and keep it moving forward. slowed the most due to budgetary constraints and I hope There are a number of challenges faced in any books we manage to mail are read by as many growing this project. The first, as any longtime member people as possible. of the program will tell you, is the financial strain of The Durland Alternatives Library is part of a raising the money to pay for photocopying and postage. larger organization called the Center for Transformative Also much of the work is done by volunteers. While I Action. [CTA].Transformative Action is an am very appreciative of all the help and support I alternative model for social action that moves us receive, some folks have higher work standards than beyond complaint, competition and “us versus them” others. Sometimes addresses and names are mistyped thinking. Transformative action has 3 basic and items I mail to a person are returned to me as components. undeliverable. Other times a journal, essay or poem is 1.breaking the silence that surrounds injustice typed incorrectly and the author takes offense. 2. building an inclusive movement where adversaries Sometimes so many of you write and want a personal can become allies response, and I do not have the time or financial 3. articulating an inspiring, proactive vision. resources to respond to most individuals. I write this so I find those ideas inspiring, and want to work you know if you do not hear from us, it is not because with all of you to see how we can use these principles in we have gone away, or something you wrote caused us Prisoner Express to help improve the prison environment to delete you from our mailing list. You will be taken off and the quality of life of all who are involved in the our mailing list for prisoner industrial complex. First I would like to point out some ways in PE continue to break the silence around the injustices that is already expressing these concepts. Your writings and occur behind the walls. Help me in creating a program art featured in many of our programs, including this that can make a difference. It is your life. You have the newsletter, serves to break down the silence around expertise regarding prison life and what you might need incarceration. Even when you‘re writing has nothing to to transform your lives and the environment. While I do with prison, when folks on the outside read your have access to resources to help, you best know what words, it humanizes you. Thinking of you as a person types of programs and actions can help stimulate not a number causes people to focus on the issues of creativity, develop needed skills and keep you centered. incarceration and prison reform. Together I hope we can partner to create a better world Many of you in prison bring the prejudices you inside and outside of prisons. may have had prior to incarceration, and grow them even stronger when locked up. It sometimes seems like many Every newsletter begins a new cycle in Prisoner of you find your strongest identification in your race or Express. Currently we send out a general newsletter 2X ethnicity. It causes you to build walls between per year and each newsletter will list the current projects yourselves and others who are not like you. We are all we are providing for the cycle. Please know that we mail human, and all of us are looking for creative engagement most of our programs through bulk mailings. It is more no matter what our race, religion or ethnic background. affordable, but it places restrictions on how we mail The pages of our PE publications can be a useful tool for programs. We have to mail them in identical groups of at all of us to see how much more similar we are than the least 200. Usually we collect registrations for a few differences of skin color, religion and culture. I hope you months and then mail a program out as a group. If you can see how brother and sisterhood have nothing to do send back your registration after we have already sent with race and religion and everything to do with out the bulk mailing most likely you will not be included kindness shown to another being. We all have so much in the program. I wish we could respond to individual more in common than the things that cause us to requests as they come but it is way too expensive. As it separate. The writings I receive come from members of is, I have to raise all the money needed to keep the different races and religion, but they all seek similar program going, and right now I am not doing such a ideals. good job. As you see from the upcoming offerings I am We all want respect, creative engagement, good trying to create projects that are affordable. books to read, someone to acknowledge the common humanity we share, a kind word, support. Imagine Projects for the Current Cycle- I believe this finding a way to let these ideals begin with you, and how may be the most interesting array of projects we have you could be offering these attributes to others in ever offered and hope you can find some that speak to prisons. I know it is not easy, and that many will think you. you weak for standing up for uplifting common ideals, but really I think it heroic when someone can buck the Book Mailing- Our most expensive program is the trend and stand for what‘s right even when it is easier to individualized book packages. The books are all join the usual crowd in creating us vs. them situations. In donated, and volunteers are available to read your the biggest picture I hope one day we can engage prison request letters and create book packages for you. I have administrators and guards in this conversation. There is been stumped recently in finding funds to pay the no need for such polarizing conditions to exist in prison. postage costs. Last cycle we began the Expedited Book Granted not everybody needs to be best friends or like Program- If you are able to send us 8 or more stamps everyone, but we are talking about treating one another we can use those stamps to place you at the front of the with respect.

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