I Could Strangle the Wind: An Anthology of Prison Poetry

In the early 1980s, English instructor Dale Alan Bailes held writing workshops in prisons across South Carolina. While attendance was often inconsistent, Bailes said, “they come and go; I keep a core of 4 at the men’s prison and 3 at the Women’s Correctional Center who attend every class and write poems both in and out of class.” Bailes considered it a privilege to teach these students something about writing, something about putting the pieces of themselves together through using words. The poems written by those incarcerated in South Carolina, full of creativity and hopefully healing, are included in this anthology.