Poetry + Abolition

On his work with the Prison Story Project, Matt Henriksen once said: “Regardless of our pasts or your pasts and regardless of those walls, we can meet in the space words create and share stories and ideas. We bring our story-telling-know-how to you and bring your visions of the world back to us.” As I reflect back on Matt’s legacy of advocacy for the incarcerated, and the poetry we shared over time, his presence feels deeply connected to my own growth as a reader & writer contemplating justice within the creative word. Over recent months, I have found myself turning or returning to each of these poems as I deepen my understanding of the prison industrial complex and the necessity of abolition. In August 2020, after another psychotic break, I found myself turning to poetry & mad survivor narratives to make sense of my own lived experiences, standing on the bridge between disability justice & abolition. A few months back, I stumbled upon “Zombies in a House of Madness” in an old 1970’s copy of Madness Network News Reader, & have been both haunted and comforted by the legacy of Michael Beasley as a poet and abolitionist before my time.  I was enamored by Beasley’s reach—from a short film of his poem by Saul Landau within San Francisco Jail, to a musical collaboration with singer/songwriter Country Joe McDonald, Beasley’s connections to others begin within and move beyond the prison’s walls. Each poem in this playlist speaks back to what I see in Michael Beasley’s work, and has been in my ear as I think through the necessity of disability justice, mad narratives, intersectional movements, and our call to abolition.