“In this second Voices from Inside collection, the writers confront with startling honesty who they have been, who they are, and who they are laboring to become. Their work is raw, poignant, and powerful. This is a moving and illuminating collection.”
— Wally Lamb, author of The Hour I First Believed
“Women Writing in Jail allows us to hold our ears to the jail’s wall and hear songs of despair, absent children, missing parents, power and loss, love, addiction, hypoc-risy and hope. Signed either anonymously or with only first names, with such evocative titles as “Bang, Bang,” “Memoir in Six Words,” or “Phantom,” these poems disarm the listener as society’s silent women express often hard-to-hear truths.”
— Gini Sikes, author of 8 Ball Chicks: A Year in the Violent World of Girl Gangs
“Women Writing in Jail reminds us of the power of language to create psychic space and to forge bonds between both writer and reader. These poems challenge our assumptions and deepen our understanding not only of the lives of the incarcerated women who are their authors but also of ourselves and of the society we create and are created by. The voices in these pages insist on their presence—”I am the lightning bolt in the sky/I am the thunder in your eyes (Farrah, “I Am”)—and believe in their own power.In “What I Want My Words to Do to You,” Millicent Jackson writes “I want my words to grab onto you, do a mean jitterbug in your head and creep into your dreams at night.” Be assured that they will.”
— Kathi Aguero, author of Investigations,a collection of poetry inspired by Nancy Drew
