Poems from San Quentin's Adjustment Center

These poems were shared with a friend from his penpal, Carlos, who is currently hunger striking at San Quentin's Adjustment Center.  The Adjustment Center is a Special Housing Unit (S.H.U.) inside of Death Row.  Carlos keeps a personal support blog here.

For more information about the ongoing hunger strike, which prisoners have organized to protest the inhumane conditions of solitary confinement, please go here.  Also, if you're interested in becoming a penpal, please send an e-mail to the Human Rights Penpal Project at cws@igc.org.



Hope

What has brought an immense population of inmates together
For once,
All racial lines and barriers, erased
Forming a unity amongst thousands
And a united group, one body
Tired of the injustice that plagues this world
The cruel methods being practiced
With the false pretense that it's for safety
The safety and security of the prison.
For no man or person is different from the next.
All equally capable to inflict pain or bring peace.
What law says subjecting its people
To torture dungeons is acceptable?
If it's not right for animals
Than what makes it right for human beings?
Perhaps it is the cruelty that we have suffered
At the hands of our captors
That make it possible for us to unite
And oppose them.
Or maybe we tire of seeing this done to so many
Of seeing so many being done wrong
Or we finally woke up to the truth and saw reality
That nothing nor no one will help change this
Unless we ourselves become the change
This is so desperately needed.
Whatever the reason may be, one thing I'm certain of
Is that hope is part of our driving force.
Hope for change at last.


Suicide or Insanity?

The yells of a man
Who's deranged
Fill the tier
Speaking non-sense
Speaking to no one,
For hours...
It's obvious he's lost his wits
Still he's left there
Without any help,
Without...
For days.

He used to be alright
People who know him say.
He used to be "normal" ...
What caused that though?
I can't help but ask.

The Adjustment Center ...
Solitary Confinement ...
Is always the answer I get
When I ask how a man went insane.

Then I count how long I've been here
And wonder how long 'til I go insane.

What's left to do besides wait?  I ask them,
My fellow prisoners.
Suicide, they all say.
Suicide or Insanity.
That's what solitary confinement breeds,
Why that deranged man continues to yell
Every single day.