 Red Room Writer Profile
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Judith Tannenbaum's Blog
November 5, 2009
- Kenneth E. Hartman’s is the third book to come out this fall written by men doing time. I’ve written before about Dwayne Betts’ A Question of Freedom and Jarvis Masters’ That Bird Has My Wings, and now I want to share a few words about Mother California: A Story of Redemption Behind Bars by Kenneth E. Hartman. Hartman has done twenty-nine years in five California prisons. The years ...
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October 31, 2009
- Phyllis Kornfeld – whose Cellblock Visions is a powerful and beautiful collection of art made by people in prison – has begun the Inside/Outside Envelope Project. As Phyllis describes: “Envelope art is a long-standing tradition in prison art. Beautiful envelopes sent to loved ones communicate a deep connection. The Inside/Outside Envelope Project is expanding that connection. Incarcerated ...
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October 20, 2009
- Dear President Obama: There are so many ways in which I am deeply grateful that you are our president. I could write you a long ode with many stanzas of praise. Such an ode would be heartfelt, but also heartfelt is this note that raises my deep concerns about much of the Arne Duncan education policy, a policy you seem to whole-heartedly support. I write as someone who has been a community artist ...
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October 10, 2009
- That Bird Has My Wings: The Autobiography of an Innocent Man on Death Row is Jarvis Jay Masters’ second book, and it comes with endorsements by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Van Jones, author David Sheff, and many others. Although Masters writes of the crimes he’s committed, as well as those he’s innocent of though convicted – and although he writes some about his life on San Quentin’s Death ...
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September 23, 2009
- The two-person memoir Spoon Jackson and I have written will be out April, 2010. We're happy, and both working hard. You can read about By Heart: Poetry, Prison, and Two Lives here (and sign up to be notified when the book comes out)
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August 27, 2009
- R. Dwayne Betts – “a good student from a lower-middle-class family” – carjacked a man, went to prison, and has written a book about the experience. Betts was sixteen when he committed the crime, but tried and convicted as an adult; he served eight years in Virginia prisons. He’s been out for four years now and in that time has earned a BA, founded a book club for young men ...
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August 12, 2009
- I love this new movie about Youssou N’Dour, the amazing Senegalese musician. I love all the concert footage, and also love just looking at the streets of Dakar, the colors, the clothes, the faces, the gestures, the courtyards where households gather, the look on Youssou’s grandmother face, the street art, Youssou leaning to talk with his son at the mosque. I appreciate what I learn about the ...
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August 3, 2009
- Just home from residency at Hedgebrook on Whidbey Island overlooking Puget Sound. Six women writers are each given a cabin to live and work in, as well as meals. Applications for February through November 2010 must be postmarked by September 24, 2009. During this stay I finished work on By Heart: Poetry, Prison, and Two Lives, the two-person memoir I've been writing with former San Quentin ...
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March 19, 2009
- I’m glad no one took my blood pressure as I watched “The Class,” for it would have been soaring. The movie – which takes place almost completely inside a high school on the edge of Paris – is great (as nearly all reviewers agree). So it wasn’t the quality of the film that nearly gave me a stroke.I’d done two site visits that day, watching WritersCorps teaching artists share poetry ...
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February 24, 2009
- I'm with David Denby, who wrote in The New Yorker about "Slumdog Millionaire:" "... every surface and texture shine glamorously, including the piles of garbage that Jamal and his brother live amongst. Boyle has created what looks like a jumpy, hyper-edited commercial for poverty -- he uses the squalor and violence touristically, as an aspect of the fabulous."
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October 30, 2008
- Please visit a wonderful new blog site that allows people sharing art-making in prison to share information about programs and resources, as well as to post blogs about the work. The group that worked on this blog site is in the process of developing what we need (mission statement, etc) to create an actual Prison Arts Coalition entity. We hope to find funding that will allow in-person gatherings ...
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September 4, 2008
- I'm deep into writing By Heart: A Prison Conversation, and just re-read what I wrote in Disguised as a Poem about Milosz's visit to the prison. I haven't been able to spend much time on Red Room these days, but I did catch a bit of the thread about Famous Writers I've Met. So here is a shorted-version of the pages I wrote about meeting Milosz. One writer whose vision I cherished, was Czeslaw ...
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July 30, 2008
- I've been on the road the past couple weeks, and missed the Belle-inspired What is a Poem? conversation, but here are two late-in-the-game responses. The first is a poem by Angel Boyar (who was my student at San Quentin in the 1980s), and the second (in response to Matthew Biberman's post) is a story about Frank Bidart, who came to San Quentin as a guest artist. WHAT IS A POEM?I am a poemThe ...
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July 3, 2008
- Evie Shockley's post about cultivating audience inspired interesting comments describing a few Red Roomers' experiences. Two of my books came out at just about the same time, and the story of each was so different. It took me years to find how to write Disguised as a Poem: My Years Teaching Poetry at San Quentin - -- to discover what was, and wasn't, mine to tell -- and then a couple more ...
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July 2, 2008
- If you haven't already, check out Belle Yang's most recent post -- helpful and fabulously illustrated.My father taught at UCLA, and when I was a little girl I often spent a day with him on campus . The woman who played the campanile at lunch time worked in my father's department, and on the days I was there she'd play Oh Tannenbaum on the bells . It felt amazing to have the melody attached to my ...
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