Tag Archives: poetry

The whole country is in upheaval as a vast Movement for Black Lives continues to challenge white supremacy and the institutions of policing and prison. As monuments fall and precincts are seized in Minneapolis to Seattle, the lies and hidden truths of American society are being revealed. We’ve been reminded of James Baldwin’s line that “Not everything that is faced …

In the United States of the 1950s there was a struggle over the very idea of what it would mean to be an American. After World War II, an American could ride high on military power and new technologies. But the Cold War and Nuclear Anxiety undermined the very real economic prosperity being experienced by the growing numbers of the …

This week, we speak with two writers, Laura Lasuertmer and Wendy Lee Spacek. Spacek and Lasuertmer run a writing workshop in the local jail. They tell us about the writing program, what led them to do this project, and its impact on folks in the inside. Then, we share a selection of writings that came out of some recent sessions …

This week, we air part of a conversation with Brandon Ackerson, a 36-year-old survivor of an 18 year prison sentence in the Indiana prison system. Newly released, he talks about using the skills he learned and honed during life in the DOC, in which he became a successful writer while in the Indiana Prison Writers’ Workshop.

First, we have updates on the Vaughn 17 and hunger strikes and noise demonstrations from immigrant detention centers around the country. After the news, we share a conversation with Phillip Roberts and Debra Des Vignes.  Des Vignes is the founder of the Indiana Prison Writers Workshop, and Roberts participated in the project for almost a year. Roberts reads some of …

This week, we are returning to the topic of Carceral Capitalism. We interviewed the poet and author Jackie Wang in episodes 89 and 90 of Kite Line. You can access those on our website, kitelineradio.noblogs.org. There, Wang discusses the relationship between the growth of municipal debt and the emergence of fine farming and other ways to extract money from communities …

Ross Gay, the award-winning, bestselling poet, is the teacher. Kacie Swierk, who relied on music to help get her through debilitating illness, is the student. Gay teaches creative writing in the Indiana University English Department. Swierk signed up for his course and found his unconventional teaching methods an unexpected help in making music. She hadn’t thought much about words through …

On September 7, the Deep Dialogue project opened in the Indiana Memorial Union with a panel discussion about race, history, community and healing in contemporary literature. The project is sponsored by the Writers Guild at Bloomington and Indiana University’s Office of the Vice President for Diversity, Equity, and Multicultural Affairs, with funding from the Indiana Humanities with support from the …

Our topic this week is creativity behind bars. We showcase poetry from prisoners working with the Indiana Prisoners’ Writing Project, a piece by Shaka Shakur, entitled “Black Pain”, and a song by local musician Billy Young. Shakur is currently serving time in the Wabash Valley Correctional Facility here in Indiana. Billy Young will speak with us in a future episode …

“Doing no violence to living things, not even a single one of them, wander alone like a rhinoceros.”* All of our songs tonight feature the whirlwind as a kind of tribute to a central essay called “The Vortex,” written by our guest Eliot Weinberger and found in his serial essay begun in 2007 called An Elemental Thing. That work continues …