A writing workshop in the city jail

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Greg Carter reads a sample of his work to students from Professor David Coogan’s writing workshop at the Richmond Jail. Photo provided by David Coogan.
Greg Carter reads a sample of his work to students from Professor David Coogan’s writing workshop at the Richmond Jail. Photo provided by David Coogan.

Dave Coogan’s daughter, then a 4-year-old, finally asks why he packs up his car and leaves the house nearly every Saturday morning, headed for the Richmond City Jail.
   
He tells her he is teaching men to write about their lives. She wants to know about the men.

Daughter: “Did they put chemicals in their body?”

Coogan: “Uh, huh.” 

Daughter: “Are they robbers?” 

Coogan: “Some of them. Some of them hurt people or people hurt them.”

Daughter: “Did they say they were sorry?”
   
That was the way David J. Coogan, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Department of English, opened a recent English Department forum to tell colleagues and students about his writing workshop at the City Jail.
   
The workshop, begun in the summer of 2006, has now produced a book manuscript – “Strip Poker: A Writing Workshop at the City Jail” – and it has established itself as an important outreach project in the community, a teaching program for VCU students and a research endeavor for Coogan.

VCU recently spotlighted it as one of 10 exemplary projects entered in the national competition for the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll. The workshop also was included among the university’s “Forty Acts of Caring.”
   
The motivation for the workshop began when there was a rape in Coogan’s Richmond neighborhood and four teenage boys were implicated, and later convicted of the crime. 

Click here for a story about the writing workshop at the Richmond City Jail featured Dec. 13, 2008, on “With Good Reason,” Virginia’s only statewide public radio program. 

For more on Coogan's prison writing workshop, click here.

The victim said she just wanted to know why the boys did it? Why did they ruin their lives?

Coogan was moved. He wanted to know how he could help other young people from following a similar path, and Richmond City Councilwoman Delores McQuinn — now a member of the House of Delegates — suggested that he might inquire at the East End Teen Center.

That led Coogan to create a writing workshop at Martin Luther King Middle School in Richmond. The teenagers in the class responded positively. 

Their writings were well received by the public, and the teenagers were praised for taking strong and controversial stands against drug dealing, drunkenness in public house and for expressing hope in the outcomes of their own lives.

Then Coogan turned his eyes toward the City Jail. He wondered if a writing workshop could help already incarcerated men write a new ending to their life stories, moving away from drugs and crime.

“The men were surprised to see me there, curious about their lives, and how they were contending with it. I was surprised that they took me seriously,” Coogan said.

Over the past two years, nearly four dozen inmates entered the workshop, but only 12 completed their chapter-length autobiographies and remained with the program. They tell their stories in Coogan’s manuscript, which is now in search of a publisher.

“This project forced them to connect all the dots – from their childhood to their teen years, to their young adult lives. From their first crimes to their second and third. From their first prison terms to their third and fourth for some of them.

“And that was a demanding task,” Coogan said. “It would be demanding for most of us to account for our lives.”

Professor David Coogan stands with Stanley Craddock in the chapel at the Richmond Jail, where the writing workshops are held. Photo provided by David Coogan.
Professor David Coogan stands with Stanley Craddock in the chapel at the Richmond Jail, where the writing workshops are held. Photo provided by David Coogan.

Greg, a 32-year-old former inmate, is one of the men who successfully completed the workshop.

“At first, I didn’t see Dave’s vision. I see it now,” Greg said.

Like many of the men in the workshop, Greg said he hoped he could turn his life around, after writing his life story and understanding the events and people who caused him to pursue a criminal lifestyle. Greg, who three children, said he can’t afford a misstep.

“I was in this time for larceny, attempted robbery, driving without a license, eluding police, violating probation. I got 21 years with 17 suspended – I’ve got a whole lot of time hanging over my head. I can’t breathe too hard. I have to breathe through a straw, you know?”

Coogan has heard the stories of men who were introduced to heroin at their father’s knee, who were stabbed by their mothers, who were thrown out on the street in their elementary-school years to make a living on their own, who saw their friends or family shipped off to prison or shot dead.

He has heard their stories of abuse and poverty, and he has helped them overcome writer’s block. He says he was scared only once when an inmate became so angry recalling the abuse of his father that he rose out of his seat, slammed his hands on a table and started cursing, uncontrollably.

“I said you have a right to feel the way you do. But in here it’s about the writing. You have to get it down in writing,” Coogan said.

The inmate never could. He dropped out of the program.

Coogan said his colleagues have been supportive, as have the students who enrolled in his prison writing course at the university. The students not only read the manuscripts of the inmates, but often took turns typing them up.

Released inmates often would come to Coogan’s VCU class to talk about their writing and their lives.

This semester Coogan will be back at the City Jail again and his workshop will celebrate two firsts: he will be teaching women inmates, and VCU students will be participating in the teaching. Additional security will be provided because of the students’ presence.

In his community writing project, Coogan has found inmates who had promise as storytellers but could not reflect on why their lives had taken a bad turn. He found others whose words would sing off the page in their raw brilliance.

Although the inmates who graduated from the workshop seem to be working to change their lives for the better, Coogan said he has no illusions that every outcome will be positive.

“I have to know my limits,” he said. “I’m a writer and a teacher and a critic. I’m not a psychologist or a parole officer.”

Following are selected writings from some of the inmates.


Inside Me

Stanley Craddock

Jail and prison are not really about bricks and bars to me. It’s not about shackles and chains and guards and guns and razor-wire fences. When you look at me, you wont see any of the above, at least not on the outside, of who I appear to be. But x-ray me with your mind. Listen to my words.  Look into my eyes. Here, let me help you. You must get a light, because it’s dark in my world. But trust me.  When your light meets my darkness, you’ll see the bars. You’ll see the chains. You’ll see despair, hopelessness and gloom. You’ll see things that chain me to childhood. You’ll see my wounds that have been festering for years.  My prison is inside of me. I’ve been released over and over again.  But I’ve never really been freed. 

The Opportunist

Kelvin Belton

After years of observing from behind closed doors at and around corners in her house, it was easy to see the opportunity, my opportunity, to gain from the drug game. My Uncle Tweetybird never knew, but I watched him. He was that weed man before me, and he never had to tell me. You see, I had a pair of eyes, two nostrils, and a brain that worked together. He didn’t put any weed sales in front of me and say this is the thing to do, but I paid attention to how the same people would come for only a few minutes but never missed a beat.  Any child can figure out what’s going on in their house over time. I was never the type of person to let you know I was learning from you, but if you watched me like I watched everybody else, you’d see I was always picking up things and using them in my life. By watching the alpha males of my group, I learned to seize every opportunity I could.
I am now and always was a people person. I know I sold over sixty or seventy joints (jays) per day as a freshman.  I sold so much weed and candy that when it came time to pay for my sneakers for ninth grade basketball, the coach asked me why I had my money on the spot every time we had to pay dues.  I kept so many people looking for me that a couple of my teachers used to let me out of class to talk to people.  Of course, they didn’t know what was going on.  It seemed as though every time I got put out my first year, it was for weed.  I was thirteen years old and had John Marshall on lock.
Now here it’s the end of the year and guess what?  I passed!  Not to the tenth grade: I failed in all my classes.  I moved on to cocaine. I quietly became the powder boy. I speak on my younger years because by the time I turned seventeen, I didn’t just have a firm foothold in the game. I literally had my whole foot up the game’s ass.  My world may have made me, but being the person I am, I quickly made, shaped, and molded it to what I “thought” I wanted it to be. I was an opportunist.  I can’t lie.  I did mostly what I wanted to during this particular point in my life, so I have to say I was mostly happy. I guess if I was raised around people that worked on Wall Street and invested in the stock market, then that’s what I would have been good at.  I would have manipulated my way into that game, as opposed to the game I pursued.  Don’t get me wrong! I made some good money over the years from drugs, but I never enjoyed selling people stuff that could hurt them. You see, being a peoples person, I really do care about people, so I often spoke against drugs while selling them to people. I felt damn good when I made one of my rainbow sno-cones or gave someone a bomb pop or chocolate éclair and they smiled and said thank you. To sell a pregnant woman cocaine, whether it’s powder, free-base, or crack always made me feel bad. But to fill up a cup from her house with crushed ice and see her smile when she got that sno-cone just warmed my heart.
When I think back on it, I really can’t remember a moment when I actually made a conscious choice to follow this way of life. But I can clearly remember the public service message that should’ve caught my attention. I remember the commercial that asked the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” In this two minute spot I saw a policeman, a doctor, and a nurse. I also saw a construction worker, a fireman, a businessman and maybe a few more.  I think there was someone with a football uniform, maybe some others. The thing that caught my attention was the fact that they showed the policeman at the end chasing down and catching someone. At this time they said “No one wants to be a drug addict when they grow up.” If I was told at a young age that I should make goals for myself I sure don’t remember. To be truthful I don’t think anyone expected me to live long enough to do much of anything in life.

The Safest Place on Earth

Chuck Hicks

Several years ago, my sister bought my youngest nephew one of those plastic “Habi-Trail” hamster cages and a couple of hamsters to go along with it. He was excited about his new pets, and before long his excitement grew when the hamsters gave birth to little hamster babies. Imagine my sister's horror when she came home from work one day and discovered that those cute, furry, “Hallmark-esque,” creature were cannibals. Nobody at the pet store had bothered to include that detail in the sales pitch. While their babies were still helpless, dependent on their parents for everything, the parents ate them. 
The first time I remember it happening, I was probably four years old. I was home alone with my father, and he took me into his bathroom to show me a new game. He made sure that I understood that it was our game, and for me not to tell anybody else about it. Over the next couple of years before he died, we played our special game several times, always when it was just the two of us at home. I didn't understand the game and don't remember liking or disliking it, but for me, it was a special bond that only I had with my dad. It was his way of showing he loved me.  When a son learns a lesson from his father, it usually sticks with him throughout his life. My father's lesson was no different. Most of my relationships have been centered around physical pleasure and sexuality. I've always thought if the sex was good enough, love would surely follow. The ideas of monogamy and fidelity were foreign to me, even though I never bothered to share that information with the women in my life. Even within those relationships, I viewed sex as an absolute, taking it personally if my partner was tired or not in the mood. For me, where there was sex there was love. If we weren't having it, for whatever reason, I saw it as a love problem. I understand now that my problems with “people-pleasing,” a major driving force in my addiction and drug use, took root in that small, pink bathroom in what should have been the safest place on Earth.

Harlem Heat

Dean Turner

It’s summer time in Harlem.  The year is 1978. Hip-hop is taking form, and the streets are filled with hustlers, pimps and dopefiends.  On this particular morning, the sun is shining bright, the morning air is fresh and I can even hear the birds chirping.  It must be a good morning because my moms is up fixing breakfast.  I can smell the bacon frying and the home fries cooking.  Man, I can’t wait until I sink my teeth into it!  While I’m in the bathroom getting myself together, I can taste the salt from the bacon and it’s making my mouth water, but reality kicks in from the toothpaste, so it’s time to make moves to the kitchen table.  As I’m waiting for Moms to fix my plate, I dip over to the window to see if any of my buddies are outside.  After I finish my breakfast meal, it’s a must that I clean up my room before I ask the warden if I can go outside to play.  My friends nicknamed my mother that because they thought she was mean.  They only knew the half of it.
I was rebellious, hardheaded and smelling myself.  Moms, on the other hand, didn’t know how to communicate or discipline without violence. I can’t remember exactly what caused me to get this particular asswhippin (that’s what I called them), but I was told to go to my room to prepare for a beating.  When my moms dished out an asswhippin, it was official. It came with shoes, belts, extension cords, anything she could get her hands on.  For some reason this particular night she snapped, went way beyond the call of duty.  I think she was frustrated at the fact that I was hiding under the bed from the lashes that came from the belt.  Knowing she couldn’t get a good hit in and I wouldn’t come from under the bed made her madder.  That eventually pissed her off even more since she wasn’t satisfied unless you were half dead, so she left the room to get reinforcement.
Now, I’m thinking that she’s going to get my step dad, but she returns with scissors.  I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was terrified now, so you know I wasn’t coming out from under my bed!  She began stabbing me in different places. In the back of my mind I’m saying, “My mommy is going to kill me!” and “What have I done that was so bad that she wanted to hurt me like this?”  The only thing that saved me was my step dad coming to my rescue.  But I was in shock.  And that was just the beginning of my nightmare.  Moms packed up a few things and threw me out into the streets half bleeding to death.  Not only am I homeless and bleeding.  I’m confused about the situation: what to do, where to go, the whole nine yards.  I couldn’t believe what just happened to me. I’m shaking like a leaf, embarrassed, humiliated, but I know that I must get myself together before morning.  I walk down six flights of stairs, and then a brainstorm hits me.  Go to your father’s house. Wow!  Did I get the shock of a lifetime. After I explained what just happened to me, that motherfucker turned his back on me, saying he doesn’t have enough room in his one bedroom apartment and that I need to go to the police station so I can report the incident.  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing!  I wish you could’ve seen the hurt and disappointment in my face.  My heart dropped, but I sucked it up like a man and kept it moving. 
Instead of going to the police station, I headed to the staircase in my building so I could finish crying and hiding out.  I can’t believe that a person who claims to love me would do this.  I stayed in the staircase for a while before anyone realized that I was there.  Then a good friend of my mother came down the stairs and asked me why was I in the exit crying with bags in my hand.  I told her that my mother threw me out and she stabbed me up also.  She asked to see my wounds and she got upset to the point that she started crying.  So she grabbed my hand and rushed me to the police station.  I was reluctant to file a report because I knew my moms would get into trouble and I still wanted to protect her.  Why?  Because this is my moms and I love her!  But little did I know this incident would change my life forever, and I wouldn’t understand the ramifications for a long time.
Now that I’m older I can understand what my mother was facing trying to raise a son without any real help or guidance.   Moms had a few chances of achieving stardom as a fashion designer.  But when your dreams are washed away and you don’t know how to channel those frustrating feelings, you begin to unleash them on the person you believe has been your obstacle. I became a hindering factor, a constant reminder of my father taking her teenage years. My mother was a child herself when she had me at 16 and didn’t understand how to raise a family, because she was still trying to find her identity.  When a child is forced into motherhood but isn’t mature enough –it’s a bomb waiting to explode!
My moms married a deadbeat, wanna be player-husband who didn’t know the meaning of a being a father.  Dean, Sr. was addicted to heroin when I was a baby and before I was conceived.  My pops was maybe 5’11, a little potbelly, dark brown complexion and about 200 lbs., but a real ladies man. He was “the man” in our projects, and was, like, the leader to his brothers.  My uncles were deadbeat fathers like him who abused their women both mentally and physically.   They were abusing drugs and alcohol, too, trying to avoid life’s challenging dilemmas.  Pops had mad respect and so did my family. All his chicks used to pump me up because I was his son. I would sometimes wait around for him to see if he wanted to go see a movie or have dinner, but if he was chasing skins—you know the rest of the story!  I always kept a master plan in my back pocket for situations like that. To say I was young-n-dumb or maybe envious of my father because he was well known-n-liked in our neighborhood is an understatement.  Maybe that made me blind to the fact that he didn’t do a damn thing for me and he was really a piece of shit.

Black Ghost

Naji Mujahid

    Sliding the sleeve of my black spandex muscle shirt, I glance at my Iron Man watch.  The indigo light illuminates.  Its three o’clock in the morning. The city is engulfed in a low lying fog bank that limits visibility to twenty or thirty feet.  Perfect!  Dew blankets everything in a thin phosphorous film that glows in the moonlight. The smell of honey suckle rides the early morning breeze thick and sweet.  Creeping through this suburban neighborhood with their two car garages and manicured lawns, I feel like I’ve stepped into some corny ass fairytale!  Each home I pass I notice curtains drawn back, advertising the intimacy of the dwellings, as if saying “We have nothing to hide.”  Such a fucking facade!  White people piss me off sometimes! Knowing the evil history of European Americans, I trip off the blatant hypocrisy!  Even though what I do is wrong, I don’t attempt to cover it up under the façade of respectability. I immediately realize the incredible contradiction.  My thoughts shift and I wonder if the people who live in this neighborhood had some type of meeting with the criminal element of the city where it was agreed upon that that their property was off limits.  If so I never received the memo! Lucky for them, tonight, they’re not the target. 
    The absence of traffic and pedestrians made this night perfect.  Only the occasional acknowledgment from the dogs in the area marked my presence.  The storefront of the yacht shop consisted of a large, plain glass window sporting the name of the business in three-dimensional white and blue lettering.  Previous recon told me that there was no alarm system. I squat down beside a row of hedges.  My mind races through the details of my escape plan in case things go astray.  I search for the appropriate tool to enter the building.  Finding it I ready myself.  My senses become keen.  Every sound is accounted for.  Everything moving is picked up on radar and meticulously tracked. The next minute and a half I will be as efficient and stealthy as NORAD.  The wind shifts and my canine friends lose my scent.  The sporadic barking stops completely.  To them, I simply disappeared. 
    Standing up, I quickly throw the chrome ball bearing with considerable force. It strikes the middle of the glass with an almost imperceptible TTTTWACK! That blends in with the rustling of the trees.  The sound even escapes the sensitive hearing of the nearby sentinels.  They remain quiet. The window shatters in a million pieces but retains its shape and form.  All that is needed is for me to pluck out a space large enough for me to enter.  Flawless.  High on adrenaline I become the ghost.
    Like so many childhood ambitions my dreams of becoming a fighter pilot had long since been crushed under the oppressive weight of my warped reality.  My core self—loving, kind, thoughtful, sincere, compassionate—was buried deep beneath a legacy of cultural ignorance and social indifference.  So here I am the proficient illusionist.  This is where I find mastery, constantly redefining myself like a virus that seeks to be more, wanting that part of itself that is missing.
My self perception is severely fractured like the shattered window I’m climbing through. I can’t be detected, defined or circumscribed: I fit no multicultural niche. I have no political affiliation.  I am the Black Ghost: cunning, illusive, deadly. I possess an insatiable appetite to prove to myself and to the world that I am more than the victim of the Judgments of Daylight.  In blackness I am the master.  I am whole, complete.  I revel in the freedom of my destructive self expression.  Here the possibilities of becoming are endless.  I’m not judged but embraced by the comforting neutrality of night.  The possibility of profiting from this insane misadventure is secondary to this momentary intoxication.  I live for the transformation, the freedom of becoming, without doubt or contradiction.  The repercussions will leave a bitter taste in my mouth if I’m discovered, but I gladly risk it to be alive in this moment knowing who and what I am.