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Plexiglass
Plexiglass pays homage to the millions of adults and children affected by mass incarceration in “the land of the free.” Through this collection of interrelated poems—some of which speak the words of men and women sequestered from view in jails and prisons—the story within the story within the story of the prison industrial complex gradually unfolds in the unflinching voice of a fearless, critically acclaimed writer. Plexiglass is a beautiful dispatch from the sea line of human oblivion; where teacher and student find insights like a graveyard shift for a church pianist. A smile inching through the corridors of a prison industrial complex; our humanity is repressed, but still lightning. Here is revealed the physics of a trench where poems become veins turning empty space into flesh. Tongo Eisen-Martin, winner of the American Book Award, author of Heaven Is All Goodbyes This book has always been necessary, because poetry exists completely outside discourse, it exists in the heavens and it exists outside logic, and it is here to repair the failed part of our logic. And now more than ever in the summer of 2020 and from now on, this book is indispensable. This is a book that should be read by every person to whom these invisibles are unknown. It must be read in schools, in parks, in bed, and in all those spaces that are not occupied by the disappeared, because they are not in schools, or in parks, or in beds. Valerie Mejer Caso, author of This Blue Novel
Kindle Edition
Published August 5, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 21, 2020
This is a breathtaking, heartbreaking book of poetry by Margo Perin.
While working at the ACLU for many years, I read numerous articles, reports and policy documents about the shame of U.S prisons. Yet nothing has made the prison experience more vivid or more gut wrenching than this slim volume. More than 2.3 women and men are behind bars in this country. Correction: some are behind plexiglass – a hard, transparent material that strips all those in cells of even a moment of privacy, like animal cages in a zoo.
Perin, who has taught creative writing in San Quentin and the San Francisco County Jail, melds her words and those of her imprisoned students. “Three-inch pencils and paper in hand/(one eraser each)/They (can) become the authors/of their own – cells.” Perin does not shy away from the raw language and rough lives of her students, sons and daughters of the streets, of poverty, of abuse and hunger. She lets us know they have been convicted of murder, rape, robbery, domestic violence and drug dealing. “We’re like pussycats in this class,” one writes, “ you should see what we do to each other in the dorms.”
Yet, she reminds us, “a pencil can be used/ as a laser beam/to illuminate the scars/of those thrashing/ about in the waters.”
The black-and-white photos interspersed throughout the poetry are blurry, both hiding the identity of individuals and reflecting Perin’s description of the prison as a “radiation chamber/rectangular funnels of light ricocheting/ off walls of concrete and steel/between/more concrete and steel.”
The classrooms hold those who are anxious to write but don’t know how to start, and those who refuse to write, and those whose writing soars, transporting them “to faraway lands/where I can dance with the trees/ and sleep by the moon.”
Poet Perin is also a novelist, an essayist and a teacher whose work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She is also the contributing editor of Only the Dead Can Kill: Stories from Jail, a collection of work by incarcerated and formerly incarcerated writers.
While working at the ACLU for many years, I read numerous articles, reports and policy documents about the shame of U.S prisons. Yet nothing has made the prison experience more vivid or more gut wrenching than this slim volume. More than 2.3 women and men are behind bars in this country. Correction: some are behind plexiglass – a hard, transparent material that strips all those in cells of even a moment of privacy, like animal cages in a zoo.
Perin, who has taught creative writing in San Quentin and the San Francisco County Jail, melds her words and those of her imprisoned students. “Three-inch pencils and paper in hand/(one eraser each)/They (can) become the authors/of their own – cells.” Perin does not shy away from the raw language and rough lives of her students, sons and daughters of the streets, of poverty, of abuse and hunger. She lets us know they have been convicted of murder, rape, robbery, domestic violence and drug dealing. “We’re like pussycats in this class,” one writes, “ you should see what we do to each other in the dorms.”
Yet, she reminds us, “a pencil can be used/ as a laser beam/to illuminate the scars/of those thrashing/ about in the waters.”
The black-and-white photos interspersed throughout the poetry are blurry, both hiding the identity of individuals and reflecting Perin’s description of the prison as a “radiation chamber/rectangular funnels of light ricocheting/ off walls of concrete and steel/between/more concrete and steel.”
The classrooms hold those who are anxious to write but don’t know how to start, and those who refuse to write, and those whose writing soars, transporting them “to faraway lands/where I can dance with the trees/ and sleep by the moon.”
Poet Perin is also a novelist, an essayist and a teacher whose work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She is also the contributing editor of Only the Dead Can Kill: Stories from Jail, a collection of work by incarcerated and formerly incarcerated writers.
October 5, 2020
For me, reading Plexiglass was a visceral experience, almost a meditation, like viewing a great work of art. Profoundly timely and deeply moving, Margo Perin demonstrates that everybody deserves a voice. With no ego, no attention drawn to her years of experience working with men and women hidden from view in jails and prisons, Margo Perin uses her gift as a poet to be a catalyst. She allows us, no, compels us to hear voices that deserve to be heard from behind “walls of concrete and steel/between more concrete and steel.” And this collection of interwoven poems reminds us that everyone’s voice matters.
This is an important book, a small book that reaches into your depths, as it does the lives of men and women you will find in here. It should be in everybody’s library, to pull out as a reference and say, Hey, listen to this.
Plexiglass needs to be heard, seen, and read. Margo Perin has facilitated something really beautiful, important and profound. That is true service.
This is an important book, a small book that reaches into your depths, as it does the lives of men and women you will find in here. It should be in everybody’s library, to pull out as a reference and say, Hey, listen to this.
Plexiglass needs to be heard, seen, and read. Margo Perin has facilitated something really beautiful, important and profound. That is true service.
September 14, 2020
An important book. Perin, a creative writing mentor in California’s prisons, removes the plexiglass between the outside world and the incarcerated. This collection of linked poems gives voice to these poets who tell their stories of abuse, sadness, resilience and hope: “Ronnie I am the loneliest lonely…” “How many crimes/are committed/in the name of/I exist I matter…” The poems urge readers to see, listen, learn: “Moms didn’t love me writes Shanice/Because/My stepfather said choose me or him/and she chose him writes Janice…” And examine our own complicity: “We are all/perpetrators we are all/victims Lee circle-writes…” Here, there’s space for their stories, making the invisible visible: “Wanting/to be found/Scared/of getting caught…” The collection of untitled poems is arranged as a musical score: a singular story made up of many voices.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews