A recent poem (finished today) that was inspired by conversations with my psychologist daughter, conversations held with prison reformers over these last few months and which I was prompted to finalise by last night’s film on Channel 4 about violence in HMP Durham. The poem portrays the minority of inmates that I call ‘irredeemable’ for whom prison has become a way of life because they have gone past the point of return to normality. Of course, and the poem starts with this thought, there are many people like me who regard being alone in prison as a luxury. One of the torturous aspects of prison life is to be “banged up” with lunatics, people for whom violence is a means of expression, those who cannot do anything quietly, those whose habits make coexistence a nightmare, etcetera. For those who think that prisons in the UK are soft, let them spend just a couple of nights in a B Cat prison as portrayed in that film before they make their judgement.
Solitary Souls
There are inmates in the prison estate
Who find solace in their isolation
Who may read and write or meditate
Improve their physique or their education
But some solitary souls are unable to cope
They look on themselves and see no hope
And need permanent self-justification
Unable or unwilling to understand
The reasons for the way they are treated
They reject a helper’s open hand
And accept too easily to be defeated
By a system which seems only built to destroy
The officer, the worker, the man or boy
They bow their heads even when they are greeted
As they struggle in their self-made squalor to survive
Once-friendly voices to them seem bleak
No longer examples of how to thrive
They will not to other inmates speak
In their weird world where all seems unreal
It matters not what the others feel
Nor do they for their understanding seek
As others find the force to have fun
Sadly, they try alone to pass their time
Suffering chemical abuse and lack of sun
For them reality has no reason or rhyme
It shows in their weary, ashen faces
The vengeance wrought has now left its traces
How dearly they pay for their crime
They do not know what they will do
If and when they ever leave that place
Their real-life choices are so very few
Lost are the family ties and the friendly face
They’ll leave their prison, soon to return
If they survive society’s lack of concern
And the wasteful pain that is our disgrace