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The Boy Behind the Wall: Poems of Imprisonment and Freedom
The Boy Behind the Wall is a deeply moving and life-changing book about the best and worst parts of ourselves - the journey from childhood innocence to the trauma of the teenage years that lead to adulthood and prison. It takes you full circle through these harsh realities, with performance and poetry, and then back onto the long road out again. This is not trauma tourism: this is one person's journey. One person's truth. But when so many people who have been through the British prison system are now dead, murdered or missing, this is a truth that lives in the shadows of the Office for National Statistics, and in the places that the media fails to highlight.
This book is essential reading for anyone who works with children, families, prisoners or ex-offenders; for academics exploring intersectionality, gender transition from a trans male perspective, or prison life and probation in Britain; and for anyone with lived experience of feeling trapped in a place where they don't belong.
Dalton Harrison is the founder of StandFast Productions (a collective of ex-offenders who use art and performance to tell their stories) and has worked as a teaching assistant with the Inside-Out Project at Durham University. He is studying for a BA in Criminal Justice and Criminology at the University of Leeds, where he continues to highlight the importance of prison education and discuss his experiences of being transgender in a women's prison. Dalton has written articles for Inside Time, Pink News and Sister Magazine x TGN, and his poetry has been published in the award-winning anthology Bloody Amazing and TransVerse II: No Time For Silence. The Boy Behind the Wall is his first solo collection.
This book is essential reading for anyone who works with children, families, prisoners or ex-offenders; for academics exploring intersectionality, gender transition from a trans male perspective, or prison life and probation in Britain; and for anyone with lived experience of feeling trapped in a place where they don't belong.
Dalton Harrison is the founder of StandFast Productions (a collective of ex-offenders who use art and performance to tell their stories) and has worked as a teaching assistant with the Inside-Out Project at Durham University. He is studying for a BA in Criminal Justice and Criminology at the University of Leeds, where he continues to highlight the importance of prison education and discuss his experiences of being transgender in a women's prison. Dalton has written articles for Inside Time, Pink News and Sister Magazine x TGN, and his poetry has been published in the award-winning anthology Bloody Amazing and TransVerse II: No Time For Silence. The Boy Behind the Wall is his first solo collection.
240 pages, Paperback
Published December 12, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 16, 2022
From the initial (but lengthy seventeen-page) preface, this collection holds no punches against the fundamental flaws in the justice systems we have, that comprehensive reforms must happen immediately. The justice systems (sadly, as many reports and evidence shows) is broken at all levels. Alongside this heart-breaking book preface is an incredible sense of astonishing resilience against biased support structures.
This book can be quite heavy at points, and does take a few attempts to fully read due to so much content within. Personally, I believe it's a missed opportunity that this book lacks an index, which makes finding a particular piece of poetry much easier. Although I imagine some will read this from cover to cover.
To say there's a lot of poetry pieces in this book would be an understatement, as there is over two-hundred and seven pieces to read! The following below are my favourites, and I reckon would suit a much shorter collection with just fifty-eight poetry pieces. A second book, please!
Poetry, my mother's country, thunder and lightning, chimney sweep, stories in the dark. Staying human, postcard a day, devolution, flash bulb moment, it's a lovely day but I am dressed like winter. Judge's last word, sit there, the republic, ghosts, you. One week, chained, love resilience. Association time, storage vaults of the mind, one o'clock, finding hope, overqualified.
Transgender offender, monsters, lost acorns, walking in my shoes. The prison path, when the door is locked, the time traveller, one day. A mother's love, signposts, peer mentoring, two years. Uncaged, perceptions, doodles, our loves. You at the back, probation, introspection, the ex-poet.
With the caps on, media friendly, my time. When the phone rings, maybe, the journey journal. Class divide, rebuilding trust, we. What do you want to know about prisons, reliving, tough on crimes. Covid 19, what makes a man, we share this city.
This book can be quite heavy at points, and does take a few attempts to fully read due to so much content within. Personally, I believe it's a missed opportunity that this book lacks an index, which makes finding a particular piece of poetry much easier. Although I imagine some will read this from cover to cover.
To say there's a lot of poetry pieces in this book would be an understatement, as there is over two-hundred and seven pieces to read! The following below are my favourites, and I reckon would suit a much shorter collection with just fifty-eight poetry pieces. A second book, please!
Poetry, my mother's country, thunder and lightning, chimney sweep, stories in the dark. Staying human, postcard a day, devolution, flash bulb moment, it's a lovely day but I am dressed like winter. Judge's last word, sit there, the republic, ghosts, you. One week, chained, love resilience. Association time, storage vaults of the mind, one o'clock, finding hope, overqualified.
Transgender offender, monsters, lost acorns, walking in my shoes. The prison path, when the door is locked, the time traveller, one day. A mother's love, signposts, peer mentoring, two years. Uncaged, perceptions, doodles, our loves. You at the back, probation, introspection, the ex-poet.
With the caps on, media friendly, my time. When the phone rings, maybe, the journey journal. Class divide, rebuilding trust, we. What do you want to know about prisons, reliving, tough on crimes. Covid 19, what makes a man, we share this city.
February 24, 2023
Dalton's words of self-love and living life as a transgender man in a women's prison is inspiring, insightful, and sheds light on a system that fails as hard as it tries. This is a truly emotional read.
March 10, 2025
A real look into the life before, during, and after imprisonment. Both real and emotional. Eye-opening, and worth a read!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews