Table Of ContentWORDS UNLOCKED
ANTHOLOGY
2015
© COURTESY OF LIKE ANY OTHER KID
TABLE OF
Chapter 1: Prize-Winning Poetry
CONTENTS
1st Place
Bradenton – 12
2nd Place
Who Are You? – 13
Just for Today – 14
3rd Place
Gangster’s Prayer Request – 15
9 Years – 16
Honorable Mention
The Cycle – 18
Out of Rubble– 19
Young and Not Yet Free- 21
People’s Choice
Eating Matches 23
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Chapter 2: Consortium Poetry
California - 25
Delaware - 42
Florida - 43
Idaho - 64
Indiana - 71
Kentucky- 82
Missouri- 90
New York - 95
Oklahoma - 97
Oregon - 99
Utah - 131
Virginia - 149
Chapter 3: More Poignant Poetry
Alaska - 156
South Carolina- 224
Arkansas - 161
Tennessee - 225
Arizona- 162
Texas- 228
Colorado - 167
Washington - 230
Connecticut - 187
Wyoming - 236
District of Columbia - 188
Georgia - 190
Hawaii- 192
Illinois - 193
Maryland - 207
Massachusetts - 211
Minnesota - 213
North Dakota - 214
Nebraska - 219
* These poems made it to
New Jersey- 220 the Final 15!
Pennsylvania- 223
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© 2015 Center for Educational Excellence in Alternative Settings
2015 Revised Edition
All rights reserved. This eBook is licensed for your personal
enjoyment only and may not be re-sold to others. No part of this
book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without prior
permission of the publisher (except for educational purposes or
by reviewers who may quote brief passages). Thank you for
respecting the hard work of these poets.
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This book is dedicated to young people held in locked
facilities. Your exploration of the concept of
transformation through poetry puts you in conversation
with those who read on. Thank you for bravely sharing
your fierce truths.
There is a morning inside you waiting to burst open into Light.
~ Rumi
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This anthology is phenomenal. It is as if the kids invented
FOREWORD
their own language to go deeper than mere surface phrases
to ameliorate their pain. The words and lines and poems are
fearless orchestrations that tell an over story. Each poem
adds to the next and builds on the deepening caverns that
tunnel into the reader's heart and there, in the far back of
the heart, is where they light the fires that allow us to
understand their humanity. I have frankly never read a book
so real and harkening in an ancient way on healing and
enlightenment. It reserves privilege for no one. It calls us to
sit in a circle and hear their poems, each word a molar that
grinds down the wall between us, each word a chisel that
breaks down the barriers between us. When I say this books
achieves what few books of kids poetry does, I mean the
poems are so close to the bone of the poet, one can smell
and see the face of the person. You hear their lives and feel
their faces and you want to sometimes hold them and
protect them from the cruelty and injustice in our world,
and you can. That's the beauty of literacy. The poets
convey a world that makes us aware and conscious of their
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beating hearts and yet, heroically, they march along the
distant mountain road alone. They keep calm by believing
that one day they will have respect from another. They
keep moving one foot in front of the other, always with the
peak in sight, the peak where they will don the clothing of
the king or queen that each individual is in the heart.
An absolute must read for every teacher, therapist, guard,
warden, lawyer and policy maker--- a must. Bravo!!
Jimmy Santiago Baca
Jimmy Santiago Baca, POET AND AUTHOR OF A Place to Stand,
C-Train and Thirteen Mexicans: Dream Boy's Story, Healing
Earthquakes, Set This Book on Fire, and In the Way of the
Sun , WAS THE WORDS UNLOCKED 2015 FEATURED POET AND SERVED
AS THE LEAD REVIEWING ARTIST IN THE 2015 WORDS UNLOCKED
POETRY COMPETITION.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The filmmakers of Like Any Other Kid, a cinema vérité documentary
film by Victoria Mills that brings audiences deep inside juvenile
incarceration facilities that use the Missouri approach—a treatment
program in which staff provides the simple basics of structure,
guidance, and kindness to incarcerated youth, bring our young
people into view. Thank you for sharing your work with us.
Our lead reviewing artist and feature poet, Jimmy Santiago Baca,
along with Dwayne Betts, Josh Lefkowitz , and Victoria
Sammartino took on the difficult task of selecting the winners of
our national poetry contest. Thank you, reviewing artists. Your
engagement increased public awareness and showed the student
poets that their words matter.
Ray “Ray C” Cordero and Ryan “G Clef” recorded the audio
versions of the poems in this eBook. Ryan “G Clef” was the
sound engineer, working out of Mira Vista Studios in San Marcos.
Thank you to our friends in Texas for giving a voice to our students
and their poems.
Christy Sampson-Kelly,Mi Ji Kim and Ashley Flores disseminated the
Words Unlocked curricular units, administered the contest and
provided technical support to teachers within juvenile facilities.
Thank you each for your tireless efforts, which helped shape this
anthology into the authentic and truly powerful document that it is.
Teachers working inside juvenile justice facilities and adult jails and
prisons, made the Words Unlocked initiative come alive in
classrooms across the country. Thank you for encouraging our
young people living through their incarceration to express their
lived experiences of transformation through Words Unlocked.
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ABOUT THE POEMS IN THIS ANTHOLOGY
All of the poems in this anthology were submitted by students held in secure
correctional facilities across the United States. A team of volunteer judges
narrowed over 1,300 poems down to the 186 in this anthology. The 1st,
2nd, and 3rd Place winning poems, along with those receiving Honorable
Mention were selected by our final judges, after two rounds of review—the
first round was completed by our volunteer judges, while the second round
was completed by the CEEAS team accompanied by our dear friend, educator
and writer, Arthur Evenchik. The People’s Choice poem was selected by a live
vote during this year’s #WU15 Twitter Chat.
First, we have listed poems from state juvenile justice agencies with which
CEEAS works most closely: California, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Indiana,
Kentucky, Missouri, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Utah and Virginia. The
remainder of these praiseworthy poems are presented in alphabetical order
by state.
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1
PRIZE-WINNING POETRY
© COURTESY OF LIKE ANY OTHER KID
Description:There is a morning inside you waiting to burst open into Light. ~ Rumi iv achieves what few books of kids poetry does, I mean the poems . longing for freedom. The feeling is like nothing but sweet ecstasy. And love doesn't manufacture itself overtime because time is .. Teacher: Linda M. Baker.
