Author Archives: Jendi Reiter

In Memoriam: Martin Steele


Winning Writers lost one of our most prolific and imaginative subscribers this year, the writer Martin Steele, who passed away in February after a battle with cancer. (We only received the notice this week.) Martin won several prizes in our contests over the years, representing only a small portion of his vast output of prose-poems, humorous tales, ghost stories, and poetry on subjects from African wars to tennis.

Probably my favorite piece of his writing is the flash fiction “The Girls in the Tree“, which we reprinted on this blog last year. Some of his war poetry can be found here and here. Also check out his Poet of the Week page at Poetry Super Highway.

If you’ve been touched by his work, please sign his guestbook on the website of Beth Israel Memorial Chapel and make a donation to the American Cancer Society.

Supermax Prison Sued for Inhumane Treatment of the Mentally Ill

This week The Atlantic’s website published a powerful three-part investigative report by Andrew Cohen on the inhumane treatment of mentally ill prisoners at “Supermax” in Florence, Colorado, the flagship maximum-security federal prison.

Part One, “American Gulag”, describes flagrant violations of Bureau of Prisons rules requiring medical treatment for prisoners with diagnosed disabilities. Prisoners are caught in a nightmarish cycle of contradictions. Federal policy prohibits prisoners with serious mental illness from being transferred to Supermax, where the inmates are not allowed to be on psychotropic medications. However, many such prisoners are sent there anyway, and then denied the drugs they need to keep from injuring themselves and others. Their acting-out prompts more disciplinary crackdowns that drive them further into madness. According to a lawsuit filed this week by five inmates, alleging violations of the Constitution’s “cruel and unusual punishment” clause, guards often chain up these prisoners in their own waste products and taunt them by giving them empty food bags at mealtime.

In Part Two, “Supermax: The Faces of a Prison’s Mentally Ill”, the magazine profiles the plaintiffs. These are not the sympathetic characters championed by groups like The Innocence Project; they are violent, delusional, convicted of murder and other serious crimes. However, the article reminds us that they are also human beings with shocking trauma histories and, in many cases, mental retardation and brain injuries. Often their conditions have dramatically worsened because prison staff has mistreated them or failed to protect them from other prisoners’ violence. Here’s just one story:

Michael Bacote: He is the first named plaintiff in the case. Age 37, functionally illiterate, and deemed “mildly mentally retarded” a decade ago by a prison psychologist, Bacote was sent to ADX in 2005 after pleading guilty to murder in a case involving the death of a fellow inmate at the federal prison in Texas. (Evidently, he did not kill the victim but rather stood guard while others did.) Bacote has been diagnosed as suffering from “major depressive disorder with psychotic features” as well as from “paranoid ideations,” and he also may suffer the after-effects of severe closed-head injury.

Bacote refuses to take medicine that has been ground up from pill form by prison officials. And they, in turn, refuse to allow Bacote to take his medicine in pill form. Bacote has repeatedly tried to transfer out of Supermax. Over and over again, his requests have been denied. Despite the prior diagnoses from prison doctors, for example, paragraph 138 of the complaint alleges that ADX officials in April 2009 told Bacote that “a review of your file does not indicate you are mentally ill or mentally retarded.”

Part Three, “The Constitution and Mentally Ill Prisoners”, surveys the issues in the current lawsuit. The takeaway question: if we require a certain level of mental competency to hold a person accountable for a crime, “why does such a competency determination not impact the severity of an inmate’s incarceration?” The answer will tell us a lot about what American values really are.

Reading this series, I couldn’t help but wonder…what would happen if Christians threw their considerable political clout behind prison reform? The religious right has poured enormous amounts of money and organizational skills into passing legislation on contentious social issues. Like the unborn, mentally ill prisoners could certainly be considered “the least of these”, whom Jesus told us to protect. Sure, their feet don’t look as good on a lapel pin, but Matthew 25 is pretty clear:

31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

So what can YOU do?
Donate to the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, one of the pro bono groups behind this lawsuit. Contact your member of Congress. Write to a prison pen pal, and share their stories so the world can see that these people are “more than their worst act” (as Sister Helen Prejean said in “Dead Man Walking”). 

Saturday Random Song: Mark Schultz, “What It Means to Be Loved”


Last night I was listening to the Christian pop channel on Slacker Internet radio while feeding baby Shane, and this song brought tears to my eyes. Parenting has compelled me to slow down and appreciate the present moment, because that’s the only kind of time that my baby knows. Like the lilies of the field, he doesn’t worry about tomorrow, as far as I can tell. As for me, there’s so much I can’t control or foresee, from “when will he wake me up next” (predictably, sometime between 2-4 AM) to “what kind of person will he become” (our goal is “happy and not evil”). As the song says, love means savoring the mere fact of his existence, right here and now.



W.S. Merwin, “To Waiting”


Coming from a long line of clinically depressed women, I’ve often wondered whether my own tendency toward melancholy and dissatisfaction is primarily a biological problem or one that stems from underlying false beliefs. Do I need a pill, or a change of emphasis? The latter option is more my style. Contrary to the popular saying, I personally would rather be right than happy. In other words, I’d rather put up with some sadness while I investigate whether things are really as bad as I think they are. What you call dysthymia, I call the First Noble Truth.

Today’s poem on The Writer’s Almanac made me feel supported in that decision. Discontent is not always a fate to which we are condemned by our brain chemistry; it can be interrupted by simple everyday moments of redirecting our attention, starting with the few minutes it takes to read these lines.

To Waiting
by W.S. Merwin

You spend so much of your time
expecting to become
someone else
always someone
who will be different
someone to whom a moment
whatever moment it may be
at last has come
and who has been
met and transformed
into no longer being you
and so has forgotten you

meanwhile in your life
you hardly notice
the world around you
lights changing
sirens dying along the buildings
your eyes intent
on a sight you do not see yet
not yet there
as long as you
are only yourself

with whom as you
recall you were
never happy
to be left alone for long

 

Nancy White: “Your Father, Your Son”


Nancy White directs the prestigious Word Works Washington Prize poetry book series, a contest that she won for her first book, Sun, Moon, Salt, in the early 1990s. She also taught English at my high school, St. Ann’s School, so I have a special affection for her. However, even if we were strangers, I would still have fallen in love with her newest collection, Detour (Tamarack Editions, 2010).

Detour explores the breaking apart and remaking of a woman’s identity in the middle of her life, through a son’s birth and a painful divorce. Subject matter that in a lesser poet’s hands would be merely confessional here takes on a haiku-like precision and open-endedness, intimate yet unbounded by the confines of one person’s experience. This feat is accomplished through White’s use of the second-person voice and the way she narrates major events obliquely, through peripheral details described with quiet beauty.

As a feminist and now the mother of a baby boy, I was particularly moved by the poem she’s permitted me to reprint below. I was concurrently reading the chapter on mothers and sons in Adrienne Rich’s Of Woman Born, which addresses the same theme of trying to teach our children a more wholesome and emotionally well-rounded way of being men despite the pressures of patriarchy.

YOUR FATHER, YOUR SON

He carved the dusk with stories—his trick
to dive with lit cigarette and come up smoking,
or the girl he danced with late, her brothers
interrupting with a gun—but he never much

listened to you, no matter how you guzzled
his gruff heat, the musk of his overalls, the fine foul
language of his big male freedom. Four daughters,
no sons. He was all you had, so he’s still the man

to turn to, saying You took the dog in the boat not us.
You stayed late with the neighbors, called us liars,
didn’t care if we walked in the road. In you now
a bud, a son who will rise like weather,

poured from your genuine, unnamed ore, from his
genuine, unnamed ore. You say this one
won’t taste the blade that separates love
from its genderless shape. You swear it.

David Kato Prize for Poems About GLBT Rights: Spring 2012 Winners

This spring, I once again sponsored a themed contest as part of the Alabama State Poetry Society’s biannual awards. The David Kato Prize gives awards of $50, $30, and $20 for poems about GLBT human rights. (See my prior post about the Fall 2011 winners.) David Kato was a Ugandan gay activist who was murdered last year because of his human rights work. The ASPS and the Spring 2012 winners have kindly permitted me to publish their poems below. (UPDATED June 2: Third Prize winner added.)

First Prize

Coming Out
by Emily Grimes-Henderson

She came out of her closet
Left her husband
Lost her kids
And in the light of day
Recovered her true self
Says she knew when she was six
She was different
Nearly lost herself trying to fit
The world’s prescription
Said it was like looking through the
Wrong end of a pair of binoculars
You just can’t see a damn thing
Or find your way.
Now she lives with fear,
Frightened of reprisals at work.
Her supervisor telling her
“You’re the man!”
Wondering if soon she’ll join others
At the underpass
Punished for not fulfilling
The ‘mission’ of the
Company.
Punished for living
The truth of her life.

****

Second Prize

Fayettenams of the World
by Lynn Veach Sadler

Fayetteville, home of Fort Bragg.
They still call it Fayettenam.
Even today, when the Mayor
wants to put up a monument
to the vets of ‘The War in Vietnam’!
Hell, he also wanted to, not long back,
create a ‘Sister City’ with Vietnam.
We put the kybosh on that.
That’s a ‘sister’ thing, all right.
But he’s sure a persistent fool.
Now he wants Fayettenam’s Peace Conclave
to be represented on the committee
dealing with the ‘recognition issue.’
That’s ours–the way we vets
will be recognized.
The Peace Conclave is
Quakers and females and such.
I can tell the fool one thing–
there’s a lot of talk going around
that Fayettenam will burn
if he invites Fonda.
We’ll take a lesbian before that dame!
Wanna know somethin’ else?
Clooney. Pretty boy Clooney.
Our Boy George.
Well, he’s never been married, you know.
Always out there somewhere in the world
stirrin’ things up.
He needs to fight for the rights
of the right kind of people.
Maybe the next time
they put him in jail–
where he belongs, him and his causes
and his pretty self–
he’ll come out with less flesh
where flesh really matters for a man.
They’ll carve off a part
that will make his flesh
match his so-called spirit,
gay spirit, I mean.
You can’t be safe anywhere anymore.
They’ve just come out
with that Army padre in Afghanistan
masquerading as a man
who has now turned female.
Of maybe it was the other way around.
That’s the problem with that he-she mess.
You can’t keep them straight.
I’d kill my kids before I let
them do all that kind of switchin’.
I bet old Sonny Bono’s spinnin’ in his grave
over that so-called daughter of his.
Some chastity Sweet Chaz has!
I always thought Cher was weird.
She’s bound to be
at the bottom of the family screw-up.
Screw-wrong maybe I should say!
I just don’t know
what the world’s comin’ to!”

****
Third Prize

Coming Out
by Janet Johnson Anderson

I have come down
From the hillsides,
Poor as air,
With nothing left to sell
But my courage.

What cannot be used
Or carried,
Has been left behind,
Insignificant
For this territory ahead.

How many I have buried
Shallowly,
In this rocky country.
Emotions, whose intolerable slowness
Caused me to stumble and fall,
Whose presence
Did not wake me in time.
Oh, nothing destroys the character
Like pure conjecture,
Years of uncertainty in these woods,
The agility of surrender,
Has confused me,
But no longer.
I am no longer waning,
Transcending morning,
Illumined in the shade
Of Heaven’s confidence,
I come singing
Humanity’s evanescent song.

****
Honorable Mention

David’s Blood
by Ramey Channell

they know we are harmless
yet danger stalks us
fear and hypocrisy
feed on our breath
messages of hate
signed with our blood
and the world is unbuilt
with each mindless death
and we become scapegoats
in this absence of light

they know life is fragile
ascending on frail wings
love so easily shattered
while conscience is sleeping
enveloping darkness
obscures hope and justice
and the world is unbuilt
and wings are broken
and losses confirmed
and they know we are harmless

Unspared Sons


Yesterday, Good Friday, I attended the Stations of the Cross liturgy at our church. As we walked through the episodes of Jesus’s condemnation, crucifixion, and death, one phrase from the first station loomed largest in my thoughts: “He did not spare his own son, but delivered him over for us all” (Romans 8:32).

If you believe, as I now do, that a primary aspect of the Good News is the decoupling of power and domination, this verse could be read as a rejection of nepotism — a statement of God’s total solidarity with all people, from the lowest to the highest. When human beings acquire wealth and power, we tend to give preferential treatment to “our sons”, the ones we consider our kind of people, hoarding more resources for them than they need, at outsiders’ expense. Jesus’s parables portray God as king, land-owner, judge — all positions that humans have used to dispense unfair advantages — in order to underscore that God is not that kind of authority figure, and neither should we be.

However…as a survivor of familial violence, I also felt triggered by the image of a father who put other agendas ahead of protecting his son, whose safety was his special responsibility.

Before I incorporated this trauma into my political and spiritual identity, all I wanted from Christianity was a safe place to move beyond it. (And I’m grateful that, for the most part, I found it.) In those days, God forgive me, I would have been too quick to explain why the latter response to Romans 8:32 was a misreading.

Now, I think it’s essential that the abuse-triggering interpretations be allowed to stand alongside the positive, healing ones. Not to undercut Christian doctrine in a reductionist psychological way, and not to compete with its claim to be the single “correct” response to the Good Friday story.

Rather, in this season of repentance, those trauma reactions should be heard to indict us, our community, our society, for having created the conditions where a person would be unable to believe in a loving Father or a willing sacrifice.

This is not merely a private problem for the survivor to work out between herself and Jesus so that she can bring her feelings into line with ours. Our job is not to save her by making her one of us, but to listen to her prophetic voice outside the gates (a place where Jesus spent a lot of time) so we never forget that the church’s central task is to model an abuse-free community, where power is exercised only as loving servanthood.

Adoptive Families Are Queer Families


Truth Wins Out, a watchdog organization battling homophobia and “ex-gay” misinformation, reports today that seniors at Minnesota Catholic high schools are being forced to attend lectures about the superiority of “traditional marriage”, in which the presenters bash not only same-sex couples but single parents and adoptive families. At DeLaSalle High School in Minneapolis, for instance, the presenters (a priest and a married couple sent by the diocese) called adopted children “sociologically unstable” and implied that their families were not normal. Fortunately several brave students spoke up against this bigotry.

There’s much to discuss here, and I encourage you to read the Truth Wins Out post (and donate some money to these guys). What I want to highlight is the natural alliance between gay/lesbian and adoptive families, a connection whose full potential has not yet been realized.

Yes, straight married couples who adopt children — your family is queer, too. Stay with me for a moment.

As my husband and I have made our way through the process of domestic open adoption, we’ve come to understand and embrace the fact that our future child, not unlike Heather, will have two mommies (and two daddies). There’s Adam and me, the child’s “forever family” in current adoption jargon, but also the birthparents, who in ideal circumstances will always remain part of the child’s life. (Terminology check: Domestic means the baby is born in the United States. Open adoption means that there is continuing contact with the birthparents and possibly other members of the biological family.)

“But won’t he be confused?” is one of the most common objections that we hear. Same-sex parents, stop me if you’ve heard that one before. Why should it be confusing to have more people in your life who love you? Why should parents be ashamed that their child was “born that way”?

My commitment to open adoption has grown in tandem with my gay-rights activism. Both share an antipathy for the closet. Of course, everyone has the right to be discreet depending on the safety of their environment. But pretending that your child was not adopted — denying the strength of his connection to his birthfamily — has some of the same invalidating effects as rejecting his sexual orientation. Both are about denying him the right to love whom he chooses.

Adoptive parents are not as political as we could be. Partly it’s because we’re afraid of rocking the boat, and partly because the process is such a challenge that it’s tempting to make life easier by “passing” when you can. I read once that there are 50 waiting couples for every one healthy Caucasian newborn. Throw in the bureaucratic intrusiveness of the homestudy, and the popularity-contest aspect of crafting an online profile that will appeal to birthmothers, and you can see why adoptive parents feel crushing pressure to appear “normal”.

However, I believe adoption shame comes from the same poisonous roots as internalized homophobia. That’s right girls, I blame the patriarchy.

Like many religious defenders of “traditional marriage”, the Minnesota archdiocese absolutely has to privilege procreative sex over other forms of human bonding, or their case for the unnaturalness of same-gender love collapses. Biology is destiny, and the woman’s destiny is to be a womb. In this analysis, a woman who can’t or won’t procreate is a failed woman, and her chosen devotion to her adopted child is not equal to other forms of motherhood, because it merely originates in her will — and God forbid that a woman’s own intentions should outweigh her biology! Hence the fear that the adoptive mother’s already-undermined authority will be threatened by competition from his “real” mother. Adoptive parenting permits a woman to exercise a creative power that is not in subjection to her gender, and for that reason it must be devalued by patriarchal religious leaders, however much they claim to be pro-life.

Adoptive families can learn from queer and feminist analysis that different doesn’t have to mean unequal. We should also be more active in speaking out against the idolatry of the procreative nuclear family, because this hurts our own children as much as it does same-sex families. Love is the new normal.

Open adoption resources:
Cooperative Adoption Consulting (Ellen Roseman)
Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute
Sharon Roszia, Adoption Educator and Counselor

 

Support Access to Justice for Low-Income Massachusetts Residents


Community Legal Aid is the state-funded civil legal aid program serving low-income and elderly residents of Central and Western Massachusetts (Berkshire, Franklin, Hampden, Hampshire, and Worcester counties). Massachusetts Justice Project is its federally-funded counterpart. The two groups have teamed up to raise money through their Access to Justice Campaign 2012. I just donated and hope you will too.

CLA and MJP have just one attorney available for every 7,000 needy clients in Western Massachusetts. Their services help our neighbors save their homes from foreclosure, secure protection from domestic violence, prevent elder abuse and fraud, and much more.

Here’s one story from their brochure:

After leaving an extremely abusive relationship, Maria* continued to be harassed and threatened by her abuser at her subsidized apartment. She was afraid to go outside, and could not do the work program required for her receipt of welfare benefits. As a result, her benefits were cut off, and she was evicted from her apartment for nonpayment of rent. She applied for emergency shelter but was told she was ineligible because she had been evicted from a subsidized apartment. She then got in touch with the Massachusetts Justice Project. An MJP attorney filed an appeal of the shelter denial, and represented her at a hearing with the Department of Housing and Community Development. To her great relief, Maria was admitted to a family shelter, and also awarded several months of retroactive welfare benefits to which she was entitled.

*pseudonym