Words without Walls: Writers on Addiction, Violence, and Incarceration

by Sheryl St. Germain (Editor), Sarah Shotland (Editor)

Writing programs in prisons and rehabilitation centers have proven time and again to be transformative and empowering for people in need. Halfway houses, hospitals, and shelters are all fertile ground for healing through the imagination and can often mean the difference for inmates and patients between just simply surviving and truly thriving. It is in these settings that teachers and their students need reading that nourishes the soul and challenges the spirit.

Words without Walls is a collection of more than seventy-five poems, essays, stories, and scripts by contemporary writers that provide models for successful writing, offering voices and styles that will inspire students in alternative spaces on their own creative exploration. Created by the founders of the award-winning program of the same name based at Chatham University, the anthology strives to challenge readers to reach beyond their own circumstances and begin to write from the heart.

Each selection expresses immediacy—writing that captures the imagination and conveys intimacy on the page—revealing the power of words to cut to the quick and unfold the truth. Many of the pieces are brief, allowing for reading and discussion in the classroom, and provide a wide range of content and genre, touching on themes common to communities in addiction and alcoholism, family, love and sex, pain and hope, prison, recovery, and violence.

These inspirational pieces act as models for beginning writers and offer a vehicle to examine their own painful experiences. Words without Walls demonstrates the power of language to connect people; to reflect on the past and reimagine the future; to confront complicated truths; and to gain solace from pain and regret.

Words without Walls is a creative partnership between graduate students from Chatham University’s MFA program in creative writing and a number of nontraditional classrooms, including the Allegheny County Jail, Sojourner House, a recovery center for women and their children, and other facilities. Students from Chatham teach creative writing courses to male and female inmates at the jail and elsewhere, organize readings of their work, facilitate community workshops after their release, and publish their work in an annual anthology.

Genres: Poetry

288 pages, Paperback

First published April 7, 2015

Reviews

[Eric Boyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm in it, so it's amazing; past that, you've got Ray Carver, Joyce Carol Oates, Dorothy Allison, Terrance Hayes, Tim O'Brien, and August Wilson. Seriously, what more do you need? Moving work throughout and all laid out cleanly, simply. A good book, and besides that, an important one.

[Ariel Alynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was packed full of passion and coldness as well. For those in confinement, writing is an escape. Subsequently, those who feel chaos may find peace and those with peace may find chaos. Writing fulfills what you are looking for with imagined worlds beyond everyday sensations. It gives you a home to spill out slang and jargon acquired along your path. Many of the excerpts make note of this. Regular people, like you or I, bare the gatherings of their life, the temptations and what giving them up means to them.

While reading this compilation I was disturbed, mortified even, yet grateful. This light read turned into a thought-altering episode for me. It left me wanting to reach out to people - family, friends, strangers, even myself. The open and quite raw nature of Words Without Walls made me wonder what I have yet to tell anyone. What secrets do I still bare after years of skipping around from counselor to counselor? I'm sure I've blocked some of it out, smoothed over the hard truths with silent lies. It seems like everyone tries. It rots them from the inside out, leaves a "vault" of unbearable truths to be delved into without warning should a trigger arise. These writings are a way to let it out despite how it may effect your life or the live's of those we write about.

[Toby · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of nonfiction essays, poetry, and short fiction... I loved this. Loved the rawness of the stories and essays and poetry - especially the poetry. Loved the humanity exposed in this collection. Loved what feelings this book evoked in me.

I would highly recommend this to anyone who is interested in reading about the many faces of addiction. I'd also recommend taking your time reading it (I did) - because the pain and rawness and vulnerability in these pieces can be somewhat overwhelming.