Professor. Writer. Speaker. Prison Teacher.
Monday was Robert’s last class. A big bear of a man, whose gentle demeanor is at odds with his appearance (and probably his record), Robert is being released on Monday, November 24th. This is a rare occurrence, since so many have the guys in our class are serving life sentences. These days, in Minnesota anyway, […]
Last Wednesday, in addition to rediscovering hope for our country and for democracy, much of the world discovered the power of the spoken word. Through the brilliant of Inaugural Poet Amanda Gorman, we were able to be inspired by her words, as she recited “The Hill we Climb. ” For some, this might have been
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“Before I Was Anything” A Poem by Zeke Caligiuri Before I was anything I was an abstraction, sound waves moving through glycerin. Before the effigies of my generation in orange jumpsuits started tattooing cuffs on their wrists, bars on their hearts, I was a red jumpsuit running under evergreens on the
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At 7:30 AM on a still cold March morning, I wait inside the entrance of an urban public high school, with Patrick, a ninth-grade English teacher on one side of me and a security guard on the other. We are waiting for the arrival of Eli, my formerly incarcerated student, who has agreed to spend
Walking the Tightrope Between Jail and College Read More »
Eddie comes up to me after the midterm and says he too is afraid that he hadn’t done as well as he should have. Eddie is a tutor, a sweet and serious man in his late twenties, who works with other inmates to help them earn a GED. “You see, my grandma died this week,”
Saying Goodbye to Grandma in Chains Read More »
As I surveyed the cluttered, expanding, and deeply moving memorial site at 38th and Chicago, I tried to see that street corner and the murder of George Floyd and its aftermath through the eyes of the incarcerated men I am privileged to teach at two correction facilities in Minnesota. I knew that many of them
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My well-equipped prison classroom sometimes leads me to overlook the conditions of incarceration that are a reality of my students’ lives.
Fist Bump Through the Bars Read More »