The book is available at local libraries. Submitted photo
‘Set Me Free’
Unwelcome Circumstance
by Yvonne E.
...My heart still beats, so there is hope.
With this knowledge, each day I can cope.
Every sunset brings a new sunrise.
Soon my turn to leave, and say my goodbyes.
This is a place I don't want to be.
I have learned my lesson, now set me free.
By Kelly Westhoff
This spring, the Hennepin County Library System published a book of poetry written by women serving time at the adult corrections facility in Plymouth.
The book is now in libraries and available for check out. It is called "Set Me Free: Poems by the Women at the Hennepin County Adult Corrections Facility."
Roughly 20 women contributed the poems found in the collection. The contributors are members of a weekly creative writing and discussion group led by a local volunteer, Elaine, who requested that her last name not be used out of safety concerns.
The book, said Elaine, is mostly poetry; however, a couple longer pieces were included.
The writings are organized in such a way that the reader first descends into darkness through poems about homelessness, abuse and addiction and then emerges into hope through poems about faith, forgiveness and the future.
"The women write about their children a lot," said Elaine. "Some write about their loss of parental rights, almost all of them write about how much they miss their children. They write about their regrets and their hopes."
"Reading their stories really gives you a new perspective on life," she said. "You can't hear their stories without being thankful for the way you were raised and the blessings you have."
Elaine has led the writing group at the women's corrections facility since May 2000. The group meets each Tuesday afternoon for an hour.
The group is open to any woman in the facility, and each week spaces are filled on a first-come first-serve basis.
Because the provided meeting space is quite small, only 10 to 12 women are allowed to participate each week.
Each meeting starts with a sharing circle. Every woman in attendance is asked to read something she wrote in the past week. Next, the women are given 15 minutes of quiet to write inside the room. Then, once again, they share.
"The women are very supportive of each other," she said. "They cry at each other stories and they often applaud one another."
"My role," said Elaine, "is to provide a listening ear, to offer encouragement and maybe a suggestion. I don't care about grammar and making things perfect."
"These women have so much inside them and they come to the group because they want to get it out. For them, the writing and sharing really help," she said.
Participation in the writing group is voluntary and because of this, discipline problems are rare. Most of the women who attend the writing group are serving time for prostitution or drug-related charges, Elaine said. They have ranged in age from 18 to 50.
Leading the writing group, said Elaine, "is one of the best things I do all week. The women are so appreciative of my time. They're always nice to me. They're not bad people, they've just really had a hard time."
"These women have a wealth of material to pull from," she said. "They're stories are always interesting."
Interesting and often mature, which means the material might not be suitable for children or early teens.
"The poets are all adults writing about adult issues from the real world," said Dan Marcou, corrections librarian.
Marcou is employed by the Hennepin County Library System in the outreach department and keeps an office at the Ridgedale Library.
It is Marcou's job to bring library services to those living within the community who can not physically visit a library. He spends one day a week at the corrections facility in Plymouth.
The Plymouth facility, Marcou explained, houses three adult programs: one for men, one for women and a third that is a work release program.
It was Marcou's idea that the women's writing group should publish a book of poems.
Two years ago, he led a group of male prisoners at the Plymouth facility in a similar writing group and helped them publish a book called "Creative Minds," which is also available as part of the Hennepin County Library general collection.
Last year, he guided a second book of poems by inmates at the Plymouth facility to publication. This second collection is called "Words From Within." It includes writings from both men and women and is again available through the greater library system.
Marcou is a strong proponent of arts programming inside corrections facilities. The creative writing groups, he said, teach inmates an acceptable form of communication for their deepest emotions.
"The writing groups are a valuable outlet," he said. "It is a place to learn and share and a way to develop a healthy process for expressing life experiences. It provides a lot of clarity for the residents."
The publication of this newest book, "Set Me Free," was paid for by the Friends of the Ridgedale Library and the Library Foundation of Hennepin County. Marcou hopes library patrons will actively seek out the book.
"I get a lot of questions about my job in the corrections facility," he said. "I think a lot of people are curious about how a person ends up in prison."
"Reading this book will answer that question," he said. "It's a powerful book. It gives those of us on the outside a better understanding of what types of life experiences lead to incarceration."
