Poets and Prisons

“I am from islands remote and untouched
from history sung
from genealogies passed down through generations.
I am from a place of no written word.”

–From Origin by Moana

Voices from Inside is an organization based in Western Massachusetts that brings writing workshops to women in prison and formerly incarcerated women. Moana, who participated in the program and now teaches the workshops, came to StoryCorps to record a conversation with her daughter. A keeper of journals her whole life, Moana wrote her first poem in prison and found it to be “an avenue to speak deeply about yourself which doesn’t expose too much of yourself.”

_{Moana and daughter Jillian after making her recording in Greenfield, MA}

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