Disguised As A Poem: My Years Teaching Poetry at San Quentin
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.18 (836 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 155553452X |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 224 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2015-12-01 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
When Judith Tannenbaum last met with her poetry writing class at San Quentin prison, one of the students commented, "Now I'm going to give you an assignment: write about these past four years from your point of view; tell your story; let us know what you learned." This beautifully crafted memoir is the fulfillment of that assignment.In stirring and intimate prose, Tannenbaum details the challenges, rewards, and paradoxes of teaching poetry to maximum-security inmates convicted of capital crimes. Recounting how she and her students shared profound and complicated lessons about humanity and life both inside and outside San Quentin's walls, Tannenbaum tells provocative stories of obsession, racism, betrayal, despair, courage, and beauty. Contrary to the growing public perception of prisoners as demons, the men in this poetry class-Angel, Coties, Elmo, Glenn, Richard, Spoon-emerge not as beasts
Poetry frees Jay Stevens In "Disguised as a Poem," Judith Tannenbaum narrates her experience teaching poetry for four years in the maximum-security prison, San Quentin. The prisoners she taught are fiercely human, use poetry as a shout: "I am here!" Tannenbaum comes to San Quentin with California 60s-radical ideas of universal brotherhood, and is forced to confront not only the prisoners' ambiguous past, but also the humanity of the police guards she has always assoc. "If I could give 6 stars, I would" according to CAZADOR. This book was introduced to me by Judith herself ( I was looking for material for a research paper ) Since I am a "starving" student, my mom bought me the book for x-mas, it sat for a few months since I was burnt out on prisons after my major report was done. But two days ago I picked up the book again, and I could no put it down. I have fallen in love with Spoon, Elmo and Judith's words many times over. I am in awe of her writing and her exp. "Disguised as a Poem" according to Rebecca K. Gojkovich. This book is great. Ms. Tannenbaum successfully takes the reader beyond the archaic mindset that society still holds of that of a "criminal" and exposes the "human being" that exists within. Giving a voice to those that society has deemed not worthy to be heard.And what worthy voices they are! You really must read this book! It was truly a great experience for me. Serving to remind this reader of that age-old question posed by Hillel, "If I a
From Library Journal In the spring of 1985, Tannenbaum was invited to recite her poems at San Quentin, California's infamous maximum-security prison. Tannenbaum taught for one year on a once-a-week basis and was a poet-in-residence for the following three years. . She spent her first years working to earn their trust, occasionally stepping into minefields and overstepping boundaries imposed by the prison to protect her. Through her experience, she learned to protect the inmates' privacy at all costs, and therein lies the problem with this book. The problem is that she seems to care too much about her students to reveal their stories, and without revealing their stories she remains unable to tell her own.APam Kingsbury, Alabama Humanities Foundation, Florence Copyright 2000 Reed Business Inf