#amy bernhard

[catapultbooks]

“It’s hard to witness all the ways their lives are so limited—to walk out those awful metal doors at the end of workshop and know they’re still inside, locked up.”

A new essay by Amy Bernhard on teaching creative writing in a men’s prison in Iowa.

(via Catapult | Writing Behind Walls | Amy Bernhard)

[catapultbooks]

In prison the body is stripped of privacy. You no longer possess yourself: not your diet, not your clothing. Not even your underwear, as I find out one day when I pass a bin full of clean white briefs in the hallway, worn and stretched to the shape of bodies that belong to no one and everyone at once.

Catapult | Writing Behind Walls | Amy Bernhard