The last few times I’ve been back to Michigan, I’ve had the pleasure and opportunity of spending a few hours talking about poetry and workshopping poems with a group who call themselves the Writers Block: ten or so writers currently incarcerated at the Macomb Correctional Facility just outside Detroit.
This February, I’ll be at the Detroit Institute of Arts to help give a reading of their work in conjunction with Soft Sculpture’s release of an anthology of the same. And I’m happy to say that over the next few weeks, starting today and recurring every Wednesday morning, Washington Square Review will be posting excerpts of their work from the latest issue, which along with Nicole Sealey and Hannah Aizenman, I helped edit over the last few years.
This first post includes a poem by James D. Fuson (whose book you can also buy here: http://www.softsculpture.org/), and a slightly gushy intro by yours truly. Hope you’ll take a minute to read the work and consider poetry’s relevance outside the constant blabber and infighting here on the internet, a place we all get to take for granted, every day.
And check out the Hamtramck Free School, the organizers of Writers Block.