Blog Post - Ife Islam

In the heart of the each cat there is France

Every dog sings American blues

Every bird flies with the spirit of Brazil

And elephants know Cuban news

The frogs, they leap like India

And fish, they are proud like Uruguay

The ducks, they shout like Nigerian people

And spiders they crawl Australian days

Oh! How the animals play!

Monkeys swing like Mexican dancers

I feel Chile in the bats

The deer, they run like Argentina

And bears wear Italian hats

The pigs they laugh like the Germans

Like the people of Morocco, no peacock’s the same

Snakes they hunt like the Maori people

of islands to grand for this game

The mice are quiet like England

Squirrels they scurry like China

The whales sing Canadian songs

And if we weren’t so human

We’d probably sing right along!

Blog Post - Dylan Henry

Tunnel

by Dylan Henry

I find no inspiration when the light shines my way, but only when I find myself in my darkest thoughts

I doubt myself when you commend yourself so proudly

Discovering my confidence is much worse than it seems

I may feel like I’m in the tunnel forever

I may feel like time stops and I’m stuck staring at my own reflection through the glass

And in the tunnel, it may feel like I’ll never taste the sun again

Feel the rays on my skin and know later it may burn but not care because in that moment, I no longer need to beg

Beg to see the sun again

Blog Post - Christo Thankachan

 Liberty Bell

Christo Thankachan

A poem inspired by the Liberty Bell

Oh bell, oh bell,

The mighty bell 

Why did you descended to floor after the fight?

Oh mighty bell that rang all day and night

You were built for liberty by them

And you respected them as a team

But why did they make your sound not heard anymore,

Oh mighty bell that rang all day and night

You lost your pride when you were taken down

You then went across the country as expo material

But you still proclaimed freedom through all land, 

Oh mighty bell that rang all day and night

Did the cracks that took your wonderful voice

And lead you to come down 

But you were once a roaring beast whom everyone respected 

Oh bell that rang all day and night

One day people will realise you 

The ways you used to proclaim liberty

And then you will be up there 

Oh bell that rang all day and night

Poem - Mecca Patterson-Guridy

The writing below is a fictional account inspired by the story of Claude Dawson, an inmate at Eastern State Penitentiary in the early 1900s.

Having a bag pulled over my head.
Feeling like I'm the worst person in the world for just a little thing.  I'm seen as a criminal even though I would never hurt a soul.
They don't know how it feels not being able to see your family.  Not seeing them grow up. 
Not being able to go outside and feel the air.  To feel free and alive that's what I want to do but unfortunately I'm here trapped and shackled like an animal never to see daylight again.
So I wait, and think, and then I stop to think again.
"I will just dig a hole to see my wife and kids again..."

Blog Post - Haley Hutchinson

The writing below is a fictional account inspired by the story of William Zupkoski, an inmate at Eastern State Penitentiary in the early 1930s.

“I said put your hands up!” the police officer yelled, hands on his gun, visibly trembling. Zupkoski

laughed, putting his hand to his waistband, and pulling out a gun of his own. He shot, missing

the police officer’s shoulder by a hair. Purposefully. Every move was meticulous and on

purpose. He was tackled by three others from behind, his body pushed on the concrete ground,

his head being thrown around and smacking on the floor as well. He let out a laugh of insanity

as blood fell down his face, trickling into his mouth, and the police officers threw him in a van.

This is what he had planned. Revenge was in the air.

Poem - Heaven-Leigh Peters

The writing below is a fictional account inspired by the story of Etta Lamb, an inmate at Eastern State Penitentiary in the early 1900s.

Etta Lamb

Heaven-Leigh A. Peters

They called it assault. 

Said I was gonna kill him.

I wouldn't waste my time.

My bruises scream louder than the courtroom did.

I let their voices drown me in that moment

I let my silence soothe me

As if it wasn't my trial

As if it didn't matter

Because it didn't matter

I'm a black woman 

He’s a white man

I never had a chance 

Each breath was a weight my chest couldn't lift

My tongue too heavy with the truth

How his fingertips stung

How my eyelids hung

How each slur felt like a slap and each slap felt like a shot

He shot me where the the jury could couldn't see

Made me scream in silence 

I held the war under my tongue 

I left my mind in the courtroom

I became walking bones

Fractured and filled with my own despair

The smell of depression riddles the building

We’re all equal to the dust we will become

Just a shadow too slow to claim

So I sit in my silence

Let it ring

Let it soothe me

Blog Post - Elizabeth Gray

The writing below is a fictional account inspired by the story of Freda Frost, an inmate at Eastern State Penitentiary in the early 1900s.

Freda Frost-

Dust trickled down onto my fingertips. Movement, I felt movement. I glanced down and watched as a tiny spider crept its way up my arm. The first living thing I had experienced in three years, I picked up the insignificant specimen by its front two threadlike legs and watched it wriggle around, silently begging for its freedom. I smiled to myself, quietly enjoying every second of its struggle. I opened my mouth slowly and then hovered the spider over the gaping hole in my face. Then it was gone. Disappeared, just like my mind, down the many pathways of my body. Where was my mind now? I used to search for it, back in 1911, before the accide- no not accident, accident would imply that it was not purposeful, and it was. I once had a craving for sanity so severe that I resorted to the act of witchcraft. For almost two years it had seemed like the spells and herbs had finally helped heal my mind, my children no longer screamed at me in public, accusing me of rape and murder, and my husband started to sleep in the bed with me again. But somehow I still felt empty, wrong, and different from the rest of the sane world. But now, sitting in this cell alone, watching paint peel and hearing people die just beyond my thin walls, I realize that I was never broken. I was the sane one, the one with the clear conscience, the good samaritan, in a world full of monsters.