From the Iron House: Imprisonment in First Nations Writing

Part I. Genre in the Institutional Setting of the Prison

Prison literature occupies a curious, one might even say paradoxical, place in a society’s philosophical and literary imagination. In his introduction to The Time Gatherers, a collection of prisoners’ writing, Hugh MacLennan summarizes the attraction of prison writing for non-incarcerated readers: “If other readers are like myself, they will find some pages here which will make them see things they never saw before” (4). With its putative ability to make visible what is hidden from public view—to approximate the world of an abject other—the writing of incarcerated subjects represents that part of the social body that has been denied, the “excess” that has been cast aside. It would be a simplification, however, to regard prison literature as a mere sore on the social body. Many leaders, influential thinkers, and celebrated artists were at one point incarcerated: Moses, Jesus, Bunyan, Cervantes , Dostoevsky, Wilde, Gramsci, Gandhi, Billie Holiday, and Nelson Mandela are but a diverse few. Indeed, the prison experience is an archetypal one of both heroes and outcasts. Poet, critic, and former prisoner Michael Hogan makes a further argument that the prison 23 PART ONE Genre in the Institutional Setting of the Prison is a metaphor for society itself, a microcosm of the benevolent state’s absolute albeit often unperceivable control of its citizens. “Barely discernible to the person who is not on parole and has no criminal record,” this power, Hogan notes, is most intelligible to the prisoner, whose unique vantage point allows him to see the world differently, often with a “jaundiced ” eye (89–90). A long-standing site of writing, the prison also produces authors who may not otherwise have been moved to write. More than a place of defeat and submission, the prison may be seen as a place of learning, where a nascent consciousness is born in the prisoner, often in defiant resistance to the institution containing him/her. Consider the following lines written by an Aboriginal female prisoner, Elaine Antone: […] my mind A devious, fool proof scheme Keys can’t lock away my thoughts. Key pushers, keys turn in their locks Reform me!! (n.p.) The speaker continues by addressing the prison administration: “Reform me as I grow from 17 to 18 to 19, to 20, / A child, my age 18, you say, “belongs in school” (n.p.). “Has it ever once occurred to you,” she asks, “That, that is exactly where I am!” “In here I learn the con games, sad games, / Yes, within this prison … I learn …” (n.p.). Leonard Peltier echoes Antone’s characterization of the prison when he remarks that “prison’s the only university, the only finishing school many young Indian brothers ever see” (67). Part of this “schooling” is criminal, as the speaker of the above poem implies; it involves learning how to “slip and slide,” as it is called in prison lingo— that is, to survive the games of the prison. Along with this admission of deviance, however, is an insistence on a type of enlightenment that occurs in this place. A 1976 issue of Tightwire, a magazine published from Kingston’s Prison for Women, features a cartoon of a female prisoner in a meeting with “A.D. Ministration.” The administrator’s balloon reads: “Yes 001, we are prepared to acknowledge that since you’ve been here you’ve won the Nobel Peace Prize, found a cure for cancer, solved the riddle of the universe, […] solved the problem of world starvation, developed a non-polluting fuel, invented an anti-gravity device, developed an interplanetary communications system, and instituted a revolutionary method where by [sic] the deaf can hear, the blind can see and the dumb can speak … But we still think that you are devious, manipulative, and a threat to society!” (“Cartoon” 41). 24 • Genre in the Institutional Setting of the Prison Some prisoners view their potential to contribute to society from prison as significant, though misunderstood. While such talents may be wasted by the idleness of serving prison time, there is an opportunity for self-discovery and creative output within this space. Writing is part of this introspective process. “‘Who am I? Why do I do these things?’” asks Gregory McMaster, an incarcerated writer serving a life sentence at Collins Bay. “Try as they might,” he writes, “there is not a single correctional program that can supply the answers to these questions. The truth lays buried deep within us and writing...