The idea behind Prison, Poetry, and Purpose-Full Songs can be taken both literally and metaphorically. Literally, this was inspired by the two million plus who are locked behind bars every single day that I wake, eat, work, and sleep. However, the audience is geared toward an even larger crowd, those who remember and maybe still do buy into the lies our society teaches, which imprisons us and imprisons our mind. I write this for all those who can remember what it's like to listen to the voice inside your head that judges you harsher than the world can ever judge you. For me, that voice came in a very specific way under very specific circumstances, and I've witnessed it in others in very specific ways under very specific circumstances. But don't let the specificities make you feel as if you cannot relate to it because you can. Because I'm you, and you're me.

From the renowned Chinese poet in exile comes a gorgeous and shocking account of his years in prison following the Tiananmen Square protests.

L.I.P.S. Love, Inspiration, Prison and Song: A Prisoner's Pen Unchained is a collection of poetry I wrote while in prison. These poems and spoken word pieces are for those who are currently imprisoned, those who love the and our at risk youth. RECIDIVISM If I can tear these walls down With my bare hands Like the women of Brewster place I would Only to return when the prison is rebuilt Recidivism Only to return and stare out My prison window Only to return and wish I can re-obtain that same freedom I once took for granted That same freedom I now cherish Only to return and write Another book of poems Another book of songs Another chapter of my life Write my wrongs Yes Right my wrongs Only to return when the prison is re-built Recidivism

As the last leader of the Chartist movement, Ernest Charles Jones (1819-69) is a significant historical figure, but he is just as well-known for his political verse. His prison-composed epic The New World lays claim to being the first poetic exploration of Marxist historical materialism, and his caustic short lyric ‘The Song of the Low’ appears in most modern anthologies of Victorian poetry. Despite the prominence of Jones’s verse in Labour history circles, and several major inclusions in critical discussions of working-class Victorian literature, this volume represents the first full-length study of his poetry. Through close analysis and careful contextualization, this work traces Jones’s poetic development from his early German and British Romantic influences through his radicalization, imprisonment, and years of leadership. The poetry of this complex and controversial figure is here fully mapped for the first time.

Poems Seven: New and Complete Poetry, the winner of the National Book Award, presents the life work of a giant of American letters, tracks a forty-year career of honest, tough artistry, and shows a man at nearly 80 years of age and still at the height of his poetic power. Dugan’s new poems continue his career-long concerns with renewed vigor: the poet’s insistence that art is a grounded practice threatened by pretension, the wry wit, the jibes at the academic and sententious, and the arresting observations on the quotidian battles of life. All the while he peppers his poems with humorous images of the grim and daunting topics of existential emptiness.