Outside Come in

Poetry. In these poems, the poet examines liminal moments in history, science, philosophy, and personal experience. He is deeply interested in the tension that exists at the threshold between outside and inside, in how boundaries or frames are established, in their purposes, particularly in their ambiguities. Many of these poems come from the poet's time and experiences teaching poetry and literature in medium- and maximum-security Alabama state prisons with the Alabama Prison Arts + Education Project. It was imperative to him that he not exploit his students or the gifts they shared in class, that he not trivialize what it meant to be a teacher, poet, and human being going into prison. Teaching "inside" creates a powerful gestalt: One cannot help but see these men as prisoners; yet they so earnestly lay claim to writing and so completely create a studio out of a chapel or an annex or a trailer, one cannot help but know them as Poets. The poet's poems are the constant flips of this gestalt.