[“For those who’ve never had to appear in front of a parole board, imagine being called for a job interview without being told the job you’re applying for, no job description, no indication of the skills or qualifications they’re looking for. Just go in there and sell yourself. The process is so arbitrary that most people who make parole can’t even say for sure what swayed the interview in their favor. It was fumbling around in the darkness. But did it have to be that way?
It was this questioning that pushed me to rethink the lessons I learned from writing. Wading in legal battles, I had drifted away from what poetry had taught me: to own the words I choose. For decades until that point, I had been searching to express myself in terms that I thought the parole board would want to hear, without command of how I actually expressed myself. I began to reexamine key words that the board would use in their denial explanations—like lack of remorse or lack of insight. Throughout my bid, I had certainly wrestled with these words. They had a living, breathing presence, and so I was disappointed to learn that both words were nouns—a person, place, or static thing contained within a limited existence. In my heart, though, I understood these words to be verbs—in motion, actionable, evolving. I knew that remorse, for example, is far more than saying the words “I’m sorry.” Remorse showed up in who I surrounded myself with, the seemingly small choices I made, and the big goals I set. I also understood insight as illumination that expands over time. The connecting of dots between the root concepts of life lessons, and making conscious how they influence our daily decisions. Insight was understanding why I chose to involve myself in volunteer programs outside of what was mandated, or why I spoke up not just for myself but also for others locked up.
I began to write with a sharpened purpose. I took my ass to the law library. No longer would I put my life in the hands of some court-appointed attorneys, who saw me as no more than another number on their caseload, another generic cut-and-paste parole appeal brief to be submitted to the court in order to get paid. In some ways, it helped to push against an edge. If it wasn’t for my negative experiences, I might have never been so determined to cultivate my own self-advocacy. Even when I encountered a positive attorney experience, which I did, I wouldn’t just acquiesce to their defense strategies. Rather, I looked at it as a chance to build together. As far as I was concerned, I was the one best suited to talk about my experiences. Lo and behold, once I began writing my own appeals, and doing so in my own voice, I started to win some—and for others as well.”]
Alejo Rodriguez, from And Still I Write: Creative Expression for Self-Advocacy, from The Sentences That Create Us: Crafting A Writer’s Life In Prison, by PEN America and edited by Caits Meissner, 2022