The volunteers make eye contact with and even greet by name the nearby group of women in orange, striking up an easy conversation. The waiting room instantly changes after they walk in. After about 15 minutes or so they come in – some I know, and some I don’t. Somehow, I make it in through the doors, get processed and patted down, and sit down to wait for the other volunteers. But first, I have to steel myself through the looming, silver barbed wire fences and swallow the sudden feeling of being very, very small. I’ve been working with Poetic Justice for a little more than a year now during the pandemic – learning the ins and outs of over-incarceration, writing letters and poems to people locked down inside women’s prisons, and making friends along the way – but this will be the first time that I get to see the real magic of the work Poetic Justice does: the poetry classes. I’m outside a medium-security level women’s prison in Oklahoma, about to go to my very first in-person Poetic Justice class. I park the car and take a deep breath, trying to expel the crazy levels of anxiety building in my chest.

Wild hearts cant be broken sheet music