Poetry is freedom…our freedom. : On Poetry, from Death Row

January 11, 2025

Poetry is freedom.  Poetry is our freedom. : On Poetry, from Death Row

*Steven Nelson is a prisoner on death row in Texas.  The Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood serves as his spiritual advisor.  This piece flows out of a conversation that Dr. Hood had with Nelson on poetry

The description of thoughts set free are the undergirding of poetry.  If we restrain the mind, we cannot describe the beauty of what we find.  Beauty by its’ very nature is defined by freedom.  If one cannot be free physically, then they must discover ways to be free in the constitution of their soul.  Words provide description of the fullness of somewhere else.  Then again, describing the fullness of one’s circumstance is the first step in the transcendent journey to somewhere else.  Maybe the best way to say it is that poetry is an unstoppable force that busts through the walls of all perceived or real impediment that might hold us back.

What is there beyond what is?  Everything.  We stay grounded because we choose to believe that the poetic has no power.  The only way to claim our freedom is to choose to believe that our thoughts can never be imprisoned.  Poetry is the force of freedom.  We all have freedom within us.  We all can be free.

Why do we think that only the gifted can be free?  Creativity is not a scarce entity.  The will to utilize it is.  Indeed, we are all poets.  We all have the ability.  Why do we hold back?  It seems that prison has a way of stripping everything from you until all you have is your fundamental being.  Then, you realize that your being is all that you need.  Poetry flows from being.  When we describe reality, we are revealing essence.  The construction of poetry is nothing more than the stripping of the false self.  The trading of the mirage of our perceptions for the reality that is the beauty of truth and essence.

Poetry is so much more than words.  Poetry is freedom.  Poetry is our freedom.  Are we courageous enough to be free?

There are many poets behind bars.  There seem to be a great deal fewer in the free world.