
Recently we talked withΒ Matt Malyon,Β our newest addition to the Teaching Artist Spotlight series. Matt is the Executive Director of Underground Writing, a literature-based creative writing program serving migrant, incarcerated, recovery, and other at-risk communities in northern Washington through literacy and personal transformation. He speaks on embodies presence in creation during COVID-19, the relationships that we can form both within and beyond the carceral system, as well as ways he suggests that we as a community can continue to remain involved in our work, even during isolation.
Β JAC:Β As we navigate this unprecedented time across our national landscape, what challenges have emerged in your work with artists, specifically those who are impacted by the criminal justice system?
MM: Embodied presence! The biggest challenge by far is the fact that all our sites have temporarilyΒ been placed on hold. We have no in-person creative writing workshops right now. RegardingΒ our sites in jail and juvenile detention, we cannot conduct online workshops because the facilitiesΒ are being cautious about gathering people together in groups. Our writing workshopsβand theΒ person-to-person encounters they facilitateβare at the core of our organization. So the challengeΒ now becomes about how we adapt and re-define ourselves for the time being. How do weΒ continue forward in our mission to amplify student voices? How do we generate and publishΒ student writing? How do we podcast? How do we optimally stay in touch with students who areΒ incarcerated? These are questions that will continue to provide productive tensions as we move
forward during this time.
JAC: What action do you feel is necessary to alleviate the safety concerns that incarcerated people face, in light of the Coronavirus crisis?
MM:Β There are definitely significant safety concerns right now. How do you conduct social distancingΒ for two or three people in a 6 x 9 cell? What if you have a cell to yourself and a new person isΒ booked and then placed with youβis the person virus-free? How do staff in sites ofΒ incarceration care for themselves, and how do they know whether or not theyβre bringing in theΒ virus from outside? Strange and anxious times.
Others who have been in similar work for longer than I have might be able to provide a moreΒ detailed list of proposals. This said, I too am thinking about these questions. Theyβre vitallyΒ important. One idea: Consider releasing people who are incarcerated and accused of low-levelΒ offenses. I think this needs to be very seriously considered. This would help lower the numberΒ of people in prisons and jails and juvenile detentions, and thus physical distancing betweenΒ people could be better facilitated. In the meantime, I believe the precautions that the generalΒ public are being asked to do should be something incarcerated people can do as well. EachΒ facility should be as accommodating as possible for the sake of safety, humanity, and health.
Finally, and even though it affects our work, I think itβs wise that most the facilities of
incarceration in America have closed their doors to outside programming. Itβs tough. Itβs sad.Β Yet it seems for safetyβs sake to be the right thing to do for now.
JAC:Β As you know, the JAC is focused on ways in which art can connect those in the prison system with those on the outside. How has this relationship been jeopardized by COVID-19? How have you been keeping connections active during this time?
MM:Β For the most partβand this is a generalizationβI believe most of the relationships being formedΒ with those on the outside via the practice of arts programming in the prison system, theseΒ relationships have as their conduits individuals who go into the system to do the programming.Β This network of programming has, for the most part, been put on hiatus for the time beingΒ because of the COVID-19 crisis. Thus, I would say that such relationships have definitely beenΒ jeopardized. This says nothing regarding the personal intent of anyone. There still exists a deepΒ care, concern, and an abundant enthusiasm for art and relationships. Yet itβs in jeopardy due toΒ our circumstances in this crisis. How do artists within the prison context get work to the outside?Β How do facilitators help? Itβs still possible, I think, in modified forms, if teaching artists/Β programs/facilitators are willing to adapt and be creative. This is something Iβm seeing rapidlyΒ develop across America. Itβs truly encouraging.
Underground Writing has been trying to keep our student/site connections active by adapting toΒ the current moment. Weβve just started offering very simple, e-deliverable βworkshopsβ to allΒ our sites. The format is a simple four-page workshop: One sheet with the workshop on one sideΒ and our permission to publish on the other side; the second double-sided sheet contains a poemΒ on each side to be used in the workshop. We plan to continue to send a new workshop out everyΒ two or three weeks to our sites. Secondly, we launched a Twitter account three weeks ago toΒ publish more student writing and connect our students and organization to the wider world.Β Finally, weβve just started a #WriteHopeNow hashtag/writing prompt for the COVID-19 era.Β Itβs very simple: Write about something giving you hope in your community, and then post it onΒ Twitter / social media with the #WriteHopeNow hashtag.
Weβre also currently trying to re-route procedures for our podcast, and are continuing forwardΒ with a number of grant-backed projects that are still in-process. And like many otherΒ organizations, weβve been filling out grant applications, doing financial diagnostics, and co-signing petitions for federal and local relief funds for arts organizations.

Β JAC: The JAC, as it grows, will continue to seek out and implement a vision of how to better support teaching artists. In your view, what does a supportive network need to include?
Β MM:Β One of the things that first comes to mind is getting more people involved with this sort of work.Β I like to think that our entire field (in general: arts in at-risk settings) is now moving beyond theΒ βemerging fieldβ status. There are more programs and people doing this sort of work than weΒ might thinkβand far more than is perceived by the general public. I think one of JACβs greatestΒ initial inroad items for those who might be interested in this type of work (in knowing about it,Β or in doing it) is the geographical listing of programs. Itβs been so useful in helping meΒ understand the field and whatβs out there. Itβs been great for making connections with people,Β and weβve had opportunities arrive at our doorstep simply by being included on the JAC list. Thank you for it!
In my areas of focusβcreative writing / literature / voice amplificationβIβm interested in
promoting this work weβre doing in such a way that others will join up. We need more peopleΒ doing such work. This is what I have in mind for an initiative thatβs grown out of ourΒ experiences in Underground Writing. One Year Writing in the Margins aims to inspire teachersΒ and writers to consider facilitating creative writing workshops in an at-risk community settingsΒ for one year. It launched the day of the current presidentβs inauguration. One angle: It was meΒ pivoting my deep anger in a different direction, transforming it, and then doing somethingΒ positive with it. The wider angle: I really believe in the power of what weβre doing inΒ Underground Writing, and what many others across the country are doing in beautiful programsΒ similar to ours. I see its impact all the time. The impact that creative writing can have on anΒ individual can be almost instantly transformative. One Year Writing in the Margins is a smallΒ initiative right now. It needs a large organization to take it on and develop it. Someday I hope itΒ will become something like a creative writing equivalent to the Peace Corps. Finish your BA,Β MA, MFA, or PhD, and thenβbefore entering your careerβgive a year to teaching creative
writing in an at-risk community near you. Or, if youβve already been in your career awhile, itβsΒ fineβteach once a month for a year, concurrent with your other roles in life. I have little doubtΒ it will change the lives of anyone choosing to be involvedβteachers and students alike.
JAC:Β What has been the most rewarding part of your experience working with incarcerated artists?
MM:Β First, I love the fresh insights from students. I love the academy, but I love teaching and beingΒ outside of it. Our studentsβmany of whom never graduated from high school, or are in highΒ school, or younger stillβare bright, articulate, and have good ideas. Whether theyβve ever beenΒ affirmed for such, we donβt know. We love dialoguing, hearing what they have to say, andΒ reading their writing. I often find myself in a workshop setting saying things like, βI neverΒ thought of it that way, but, of course, that makes even more sense than what I said.β BeingΒ outside the academy means were almost always outside the theoretical and into the practical stuffΒ of writing. I love theory, too, but being in these contexts grounds me in reality, in ourΒ community, and in the daily ritual of sharing words and literature together.
Second, I find the whole experience of what weβre doing to be humbling. Itβs a whole new sortΒ of education for me. A way for me to see through othersβ eyes in ways I never did before. ToΒ educate me on blind spots Iβve had, or ones I need to work out. On the other side, I think theΒ workshops are enlightening for our studentsβthey have great things to say, they can read a poemΒ by Sappho and find commonality, they can write a riff on the Inferno and thus become part of theΒ tradition of writing, they can be funny and smart and intelligent. And, to top it off, they haveΒ someoneβour teaching writersβnotice these things and reflect it back to them.
Third, if Iβve learned one thing over and over itβs that all of us are in the boat together, as it were.Β We make sure to convey this to our students. We write, and in doing so we join the great riverΒ that is literary tradition. We try our very best to avoid damaging pedagogical models. WeΒ facilitate workshops from a seated position. We guide the workshop rather than teach from aΒ top-down perspective. We affirm, convey empathy, and we listen. I donβt feel all that differentΒ than our students, as far as our shared human condition. Iβm no better or worse. Sure, weβre notΒ exactly alike, but we have so much in common. We meet and read and write together in trueΒ community.
JAC:Β As our art networks look to the future, how do you hope the Coronavirus pandemic, as well as this period of isolation, alters the publicβs understanding of the justice system?
MM:Β I hope more people start thinking about it. I work in these contexts all the time and forget someΒ people just donβt think or know much about such things, such places (and thereβs still so muchΒ that I need to learn). Our society has more often than not obscured the subject and reality ofΒ incarceration from widespread knowledge. I feel like thereβs a great deal of momentum rightΒ now to change this. Itβs very hopeful.
I also hope that as the general knowledge about incarceration increases, a rising pressure toΒ reform can be leveraged enough to cause a real turn to humility within the personal lives andΒ public work of the policymakers and leaders of our American system. Weβre not doing thingsΒ well. Itβs not working. So, how about we look to other models that are working far better thanΒ our own? Perhaps we should look to other countries, particularly Scandinavian countries likeΒ Norway. Why, we might wonder, are they doing so much better, with such lower rates ofΒ recidivism?
With all the pandemic coverage thatβs happening, with all the calls for adjustments to facilitateΒ what should be simple human rights . . . I hope people will understand just how much reformΒ needs to happen within the justice system, particularly as it pertains to incarceration. And I hopeΒ this will have the outcome of actual and real change taking place now and in the near future.
If you are interested in reading or sharing more of Matt’s reading, JAC encourages you to explore his work,Β The Stories We Save May Include Our Own.
The Stories We Save May Include Our Own – Matt Malyon
Matt Malyon is the founding Executive Director of Underground Writing, a literature-based creative writing program serving migrant, incarcerated, recovery, and other at-risk communities in northern Washington through literacy and personal transformation.Β He is the author of the poetry chapbook, During the Flood.Β His poetry has received a Pushcart Prize nomination and has been featured in various journalsβ including the University of Iowaβs 100 Words, Rock & Sling, Measure, and The Stanza Project.Β He serves as a Mentor in the PEN Prison Writing Program, and recently founded the One Year Writing in the Margins initiative.
For more on Matt and Underground Writing, visit:
www.oneyearwritinginthemargins.org
I would love it if someone in the Phoenix, Arizona area could teach a creative writing course to the inmates at the Aspen Unit on Roosevelt Street.
This is a mental health yard with higher functioning inmates that badly need a creative outlet.
Iβm just making a request the only way I know how. I donβt see any way else to reach out to the JAC in your website.
My email is gg.brown55@gmail.com
Thank you,
Gigi Brown