“yes. there is darkness. okay?” 

Let that sit. okay? 

I realize this feels awfully bleak — especially considering it is the final line of a poem. The last thought left with us as readers. Why would anyone want to cope with that? 

The genre of prison writing negotiates a unique, potentially precarious, relationship between the author and the audience. It is no secret that within this specific genre, the audience possesses more social and political capital than the authors. With the prison system stripping incarcerated individuals of many of their legal rights and subjecting them to social death, writing is one of the most accessible mechanisms to assert one’s humanity and validity to the “outside” world. Public favor of an incarcerated individual’s writing is essential. 

As readers, we delve into prison anthologies, memoirs and art with the expectation that we may understand something deeper about the carceral experience. An example of this is Matthew Mendoza’s “What’s Prison Like?” in which an outsider repeatedly requests three shackled prisoners to describe the experience of incarceration. In addition to the expectation of answers, there is a hope that these works will affirm that human beings can triumph over oppression. In the anthology “Inside This Place, Not of It,” each individual’s story concludes with an uplifting sentiment about how they improved their mindsets and lives despite incarceration. As these works continue to validate our emotions and curiosity surrounding incarceration, we continue paying closer attention to them, thus fueling and supporting the genre of prison writing. This then begs the question, must prison writers cater their works to appease the world’s thoughts and emotions and, in turn, regain relevance? 

Formerly incarcerated writers Carolyn Baxter and Randall Horton suggest otherwise. Both poets experiment with various visual and conceptual components of their works, thus obscuring the true message of their poems. In her collection of works, “Prison Solitary and Other Free Government Services,” Baxter frequently employs fragmentation, line breaks and literary devices such as metaphors and personification to animate her experiences of imprisonment and femininity. Similarly, Horton’s “{#289-128}” manipulates spacing and visual effects to illustrate incarceration’s increasing toll on a person’s mental and physical self. At their core, these poems still negotiate experiences similar to those recounted in other works. However, the artistic liberties taken by Baxter and Horton plant seeds of uncertainty and confusion within their audience’s mind, thus subverting the innate power dynamic between prison authors and readers. Through their poetry’s experimental and surrealist nature, Baxter and Horton invite the audience to serve as spectators to their complex, indescribable experiences of imprisonment while maintaining their authority as authors. 

A prominent commonality between Baxter and Horton’s writing styles is their use of fragmentation and manipulation of spacing. Though these techniques create individual effects unique to the content of each author’s poetry, they generally complicate the pacing and meaning of the poems, exacerbating tension and uncertainty for the reader. In one of the earlier poems within Baxter’s anthology, “Lower Court,” she consistently toys with the reader’s understanding of the text with various line breaks and fragmented phrases. The piece is narrated in the third person, thus automatically suggesting a voyeuristic quality to the text. The first couple of lines provide a surreal description of a woman with a “switchblade [...] .22 automatic, a few shells, crumpled one dollar bills, some change” falling out of her mouth. Already, the imagery within this poem obscures the event’s true nature. However, as Baxter allows the reader to gain more clarity, she also increases the drama of the work. In the following line, Baxter includes a sizable gap between moments when “her pimp steps in,” “slaps her” and “see jugular”. Her manipulation of spacing in this moment intensifies the impact of the poem’s events on the reader. We are forced to wait, sit with the concept of a “pimp,” sit with the “slap.” Baxter takes control of the audience’s mind, meticulously crafting our experience reading her poetry. As the piece continues, she continues to employ such techniques, most notably in the third stanza, isolating the phrase “the light dim / in the courtroom,” before describing how the woman’s body turns into a projector. The imagery of the woman’s body as a vessel of this poem suggests themes of how the justice system can take everything from a woman or the toll incarceration places on womanhood. It is additionally notable that Baxter does not merely manipulate the pacing of her poetry. Baxter interrupts the narration set within the courtroom and brings the audience to “another nite.” The unpredictability of Baxter’s poetry, in terms of language and presentation, draws the reader’s attention while refusing to deliver a clear meaning. This poem’s literal and conceptual fragmentation transforms Baxter’s audience from individuals with the power to rehumanize someone into mere spectators attempting to interpret indescribable and complex experiences of womanhood and imprisonment. 

Horton accomplishes a similar effect and control over his audience within his poem “: The Making of {#289-128} in Five Parts.” Like many other works within the genre of prison writing, this poem negotiates the psychological toll incarceration gradually places on one’s being. The poem begins by describing how one will be locked up as a result of imprisonment. However, in order to provide further imagery, Horton includes two line breaks that isolate the words “a beetle” and “in a darlingtonia.” The emphasis on this description complicates the reader’s understanding of what imprisonment means for someone. Horton’s shift from simply “you will be arrested & sequestered” to such a specific metaphor challenges the reader to make a deeper effort to understand the text. An incarcerated individual is not merely locked up but defenseless and trapped in an environment meant to break them down. As the poem continues, Horton continues to play with pacing and the reader’s emotions through visual effects such as writing “day/month/year” to demonstrate how time blends in with itself and “you wait &... wait—” to illustrate how it simultaneously drags on. These artistic techniques exacerbate the emotional toll the poem places on the reader while also navigating the toll it places on incarcerated individuals. We are not left with a work that illustrates the realities of the carceral system while demonstrating a human ability to triumph over such adversity. Rather, Horton’s poem leaves the reader with a sense of uncertainty or discomfort surrounding the experience of incarceration. As the poem continues, Horton utilizes more line breaks, slowing down the reader’s thought process and thus forcing us to contend with the prospect of becoming just a number, “{#289-128} / a nonbeing.” 

Horton further challenges his readers’ expectations in his subsequent work, “: Sorry This Not That Poem.” Though this poem does not include fragmentation like the aforementioned pieces, Horton experiments with grammar and imagery to explore his own emotions relating to incarceration and refute the reader’s expectations that his writing will placate their own emotions. The poem starts with beautiful naturalistic imagery, describing flowers, the rising sun, “air fragrant with lavender,” etcetera. This leads the reader into a false sense of security surrounding the subject matter and tone of the poem. However, Horton quickly crushes this expectation with the line, “yes, deceit comes to mind— / .a lie. traitor. turncoat. recreant.” Similar to the manipulation of spacing in the earlier poems, this unconventional use of periods disrupts the poem’s flow and increases the impact of each word on the reader. Later, Horton writes, “this is not that poem nor am i / that poet to hold your hand / .or. erase knothole screams / blood on a cement floor .or. / suicide is another form of escape”. Using periods surrounding each “or” helps distinguish the following phrases. Already graphic imagery, such as “knothole screams” and “blood on a cement floor,” are dramatized by the break preceding them. Horton’s manipulation of grammar does not spare the reader any of the horrors he himself had to experience. 

Carolyn Baxter and Randall Horton’s unique styles of writing implore their audience to relinquish control to the texts. They toy with the audience’s understanding and emotions, creating a potential uncertainty that never truly gets satisfied. As such, their writings suggest both an internal and external dynamic of prison writing. On the one hand, the psychological toll placed on an incarcerated individual is messy, never-ending and unsatisfying. However, they do not attempt to sugar-coat this toll for their audiences in the hope of creating a more appealing work. Through the artistic liberties taken in their poetry, Baxter and Horton compel their audience to be spectators to their experiences while refusing to cede their authority or voice to the audience.