I'm going to start with a poem called "American Inferno."
The prison system is divine.
A comedy of errors.
Funny how, like God, we've carved out layer
upon layer of just the right amount of hell
for each offense.
A downward spiral from juvie to eternal life behind bars,
from social and civic death to that lowest ring of fire,
death row.
Like God, we act on wrath.
Insist there's a price to pay for worshipping
at the altar of greed or heedless pleasure,
for disrespecting authority, insist
that some must die in the wilderness
without ever seeing the promise of the land.
No free bread dropping out of nowhere
to fill the emptinesses, no Beatrice, to be or not to be.
This poem-- I think and thought every day that I was working
on this manuscript about what--
oh, my God, I'm blanking from nervousness.
Juliana, thank you.
What Juliana said in opening us up
about making space for people to tell their own stories.
That's a thing that I struggled with in working on these poems.
And so I hope that consciousness comes through.