On Monday in class, we watched a documentary entitled, "What I Want My Words To Do For You." This critically acclaimed film follows a writing group in a maximum security women's prison, and then the performance of some of the pieces in a special presentation at the prison by actresses like Marisa Tomei, Glenn Close, and Rosie Perez. Here is the website about the film: http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2003/whatiwant/index.html

I first want to address that this film is challenging on ethical grounds, because murder is murder, right? And yet to see and hear the stories of many of these women, one is struck by the honesty and remorse and shame - they become real people, not just faces and names that you flip past in a newspaper. Then again, their victims also had faces and names - but many of these women now realize that. So it is interesting, to say the least. I did appreciate that the film wasn't trying to make the point that these women should be released or given special priveleges. I don't even think it was making the point that the judicial system is bad or that prisons are bad. The message I got was that groups like this create a community in which writing becomes theraputic, and rehabilitative.

The honesty with which many of the women presented their stories was shocking and thought-provoking. One story in particular that struck me was that of a former prostitute who had, in a fit of rage, stabbed to death one of her "johns." As she told her story, she was crying, explaining that she knew that in a few minutes, that man had received all the guilt, shame, and hurt from years of sexual and physical abuse from her childhood and adolescence. She was acutely aware that she took the life of another human being, a real person with a name and a family. She was even conscious enough of her crime to say that, looking back, she knew the man she'd killed was not a pervert or sex-addict, but an elderly man who had recently lost his wife of 40 years and was craving intimacy. The fact that she could be that understanding and compassionate about a man she murdered really jarred me. At the same time - she did commit a crime, and she should be in prison. So---

Now on to the writing aspect. In class someone half-jokingly remarked that they'd have liked to see how this program worked in a men's prison facility. I think there's some truth to the idea, however, that a community of writers like the one in the film may only have been possible with a group of women. Men and women are so different in their ways of communicating, and something about the trusting - and even nurturing - nature of the women made their sharing capable. They wanted to listen, and more importantly they wanted to be heard, because then it made their stories of change and sorrow matter.

More thoughts to come later...