What does a class, a teacher, a book, a community of students mean to someone inside?

Below, in a prose poem to his teacher, Shaun Griffin, Ismael Santillanes, poet and member of the Northern Nevada Correctional Center Razor Wire Poetry Workshop for 24 years, answers that question.

In 2022, Ismael graduated from Antioch University with a Masters in Fine Arts in Creative Writing.

i never asked how one

distills life into a line thin as a man pared off an unwritten page and palm what little love might weigh

just to slowly enkindle the dried twigs of hearts’ veins in prisoners who could easily catch too fast and

blow away i never asked how prayers burned on my tongue to keep me warm as i quietly waited all

those years i never asked if time would press me down like a word inside a book or drown in the stomach

or rage from throat i never asked how one could save himself from dying but listened to what you taught

and softly sang.

Ismael Santillanes, 2023