Felon: Poems
Reginald Dwayne Betts
(Author)
Description
In fierce, agile poems, Felon tells the story of the effects of incarceration--canvassing a wide range of emotions and experiences through homelessness, underemployment, love, drug abuse, domestic violence, fatherhood, and grace--and, in doing so, creates a travelogue for an imagined life. Reginald Dwayne Betts confronts the funk of post-incarceration existence in traditional and newfound forms, from revolutionary found poems created by redacting court documents to the astonishing crown of sonnets that serves as the volume's radiant conclusion.
Product Details
Price
$15.95
$14.83
Publisher
W. W. Norton & Company
Publish Date
March 30, 2021
Pages
112
Dimensions
6.1 X 8.1 X 0.4 inches | 0.28 pounds
Language
English
Type
Paperback
EAN/UPC
9780393542035
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About the Author
Reginald Dwayne Betts is a poet, lawyer, and the founder and director of Freedom Reads.
Reviews
[Betts] writes masterfully, in various forms. He also illustrates the transformative power of love.--Elizabeth Lund - Washington Post
Searing.... This is a powerful work of lyric art. It is also a tour de force indictment of the carceral industrial state.--Carolyn Forché - New York Times Book Review
Felon is the keenest of testaments to what it's like to have lived behind the walls, to the crucible of having one's humanity challenged, changed, erased, to how--for the anointed--prisons persist beyond the walls. While there are poems aplenty on the mental and physical violence of prison and our unjustice system, the collection is also a moving exploration of love?romantic and familial?and how one nurtures that love against odds that at times seem impossible. Felon is bracing, revelatory work. Read it and be transformed.--Mitchell S. Jackson, author of Survival Math
Felon is a stunningly crafted indictment of prison's dehumanization of Black men and their loved ones. Through his unvarnished descriptions of the path to prison and its aftermath from myriad vantage points--son, husband, father, cellmate, Yale-educated public defender--Betts does nothing to protect himself, or us, from what he has done and suffered and witnessed. His compassion and breathtaking literary gifts make it impossible for us to look away or remain complicit in mass criminalization's status quo.--sujatha baliga, director of the Restorative Justice Project
Felon is the keenest of testaments to what it's like to have lived behind the walls, to the crucible of having one's humanity challenged, changed, erased, to how--for the anointed--prisons persist beyond the walls. While there are poems aplenty on the mental and physical violence of prison and our unjustice system, the collection is also a moving exploration of love?romantic and familial?and how one nurtures that love against odds that at times seem impossible. Felon is bracing, revelatory work. Read it and be transformed.--Mitchell S. Jackson, author of Survival Math
Felon is a stunningly crafted indictment of prison's dehumanization of Black men and their loved ones. Through his unvarnished descriptions of the path to prison and its aftermath from myriad vantage points--son, husband, father, cellmate, Yale-educated public defender--Betts does nothing to protect himself, or us, from what he has done and suffered and witnessed. His compassion and breathtaking literary gifts make it impossible for us to look away or remain complicit in mass criminalization's status quo.--sujatha baliga, director of the Restorative Justice Project
Searing.... This is a powerful work of lyric art. It is also a tour de force indictment of the carceral industrial state.--Carolyn Forché - New York Times Book Review
Felon is the keenest of testaments to what it's like to have lived behind the walls, to the crucible of having one's humanity challenged, changed, erased, to how--for the anointed--prisons persist beyond the walls. While there are poems aplenty on the mental and physical violence of prison and our unjustice system, the collection is also a moving exploration of love?romantic and familial?and how one nurtures that love against odds that at times seem impossible. Felon is bracing, revelatory work. Read it and be transformed.--Mitchell S. Jackson, author of Survival Math
Felon is a stunningly crafted indictment of prison's dehumanization of Black men and their loved ones. Through his unvarnished descriptions of the path to prison and its aftermath from myriad vantage points--son, husband, father, cellmate, Yale-educated public defender--Betts does nothing to protect himself, or us, from what he has done and suffered and witnessed. His compassion and breathtaking literary gifts make it impossible for us to look away or remain complicit in mass criminalization's status quo.--sujatha baliga, director of the Restorative Justice Project
Felon is the keenest of testaments to what it's like to have lived behind the walls, to the crucible of having one's humanity challenged, changed, erased, to how--for the anointed--prisons persist beyond the walls. While there are poems aplenty on the mental and physical violence of prison and our unjustice system, the collection is also a moving exploration of love?romantic and familial?and how one nurtures that love against odds that at times seem impossible. Felon is bracing, revelatory work. Read it and be transformed.--Mitchell S. Jackson, author of Survival Math
Felon is a stunningly crafted indictment of prison's dehumanization of Black men and their loved ones. Through his unvarnished descriptions of the path to prison and its aftermath from myriad vantage points--son, husband, father, cellmate, Yale-educated public defender--Betts does nothing to protect himself, or us, from what he has done and suffered and witnessed. His compassion and breathtaking literary gifts make it impossible for us to look away or remain complicit in mass criminalization's status quo.--sujatha baliga, director of the Restorative Justice Project
