Prison Years

Doing Time

Another Place To Be

A prison is a place under the sky, a particular spot on the planet, with its weather, its wild air and wild light. In the fortress-like pink stone building in downtown Boston, where I was jailed when I first surrendered, my cell looked down on a single city tree, six
stories below. When I was moved to a cell that faced nothing but the slab walls and reflective windows of another wing of the jail, I sat at the wood platform that was bolted to the wall for a desk, looked out at the intense blank blue of the October sky and wondered how I would survive. At that moment, two Canada geese passed, their honking so loud I could hear it through the doubled panes of two-inch thick security glass. Then they were gone.

Prison is a place of punishment, a deprivation of pleasure, a separation from loved ones, a loss of control over events large and small. It suggests the metaphors of darkness: the underworld, the dark of night, the dark night of the soul, an absence that terrifies with its emptiness. It holds the danger of despair. The work of prison years is reflection— relentless introspection under a merciless, accusing glare. In this respect prison is a solitary and spiritual place.

But the work of prison days is sheer survival—keeping body and spirit intact under the relentless grinding down. What metaphors do we have for using a toilet in a shared room, for stripping in front of a stranger to prove that you harbor no weapons or
drugs, for not being hugged good night by your family? The opposite of despair is not hope; it is getting up out of bed every day.

I spent six years in the prison world. I grieved, I despaired, I survived, I rejoiced, I was released.


DOING TIME.pdf
  1. This is an incredibly powerful piece of work. I read it from start to finish in one sitting and it is still reverberating.

    Thank you.
    Karen Williamson    Jul 26, 01:24 pm    #
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About Katherine Power

I didn’t set out to be a terrorist. As a student activist, I moved from protesting the war in Viet Nam to waging guerrilla war to overthrow the government….

Recent and Upcoming Appearances & Publications
3/12/19 Peace, Justice and Transformation, Parallel Conference to the UN Commission on the Status of Women, 777 United Nations Plaza, NYC
11/13/18 A Journey from Guerrilla to Grandmother, Lifelong Learners: An Independent Collaborative, Temple Shir Tikva, 141 Boston Post Road, Wayland, MA 01778
10/10/18 Provincetown Women’s Week Reading from Doing Time:Papers from Framingham Prison, AMP, 432 Commercial Street, Provincetown, MA
4/6-9/2018 The Nature of Change, Radical Imagination Conference, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR
1/15/2014 Complexity and Social Change, Occupy Radio
10/31/2013 Surrender, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR
10/25/2013 Surrender, Taos Community Theater, Taos, NM

more »

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