Vox Populi
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Fred Everett Maus: In the Women’s Prison
[This poem is made of words from a meditation group in a maximum security prison]
A woman meditates silently for two minutes, eyes closed—
Always a block party
inside my head. This is
the first time my mind
has ever been quiet.
A woman reads a poem about Richard Blanco and his mother—
Home. And home is not something
you know about, it’s something you feel.
A woman reads a poem by Greg Orr about starting over—
This man understands suffering.
Has he suffered a lot?
A woman listens to Annea Lockwood’s recording of the Hudson River—
We don’t have trees.
I haven’t heard a river
for ten years.
We have the big sky,
always different.
I remember
the creek by my old house.
I loved that creek. The river
we just heard, that’s
nature at its finest.
A woman dreams, listening to slow music by Mozart—
I’ll get a big Jeep.
I’ll drive it where I want.
So good! I
haven’t figured out yet—it
has a vanity plate.
I don’t know what
the plate says.
A woman leads a meditation—
May we all be grateful we’re
here, and not some place worse.
Copyright 2017 Fred Everett Maus
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Vox Populi 
In an Arizona State prison 1n 2001, just days before 9-11, I, quite by accident, was dropped off at a yard upon which Poet, essayist, and University of Arizona professor Richard Shelton was running a writing workshop. Like the above, most of the noise coming from prison are screams for much more of this.
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Thanks, Matthew. I agree. Much more of this kind of thing is needed.
M.
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