Shannon A. Smith

Excerpt from: Wasted Youth is the epitome of my succession of cells that I've dwelled in for the last 15 years. I'm not equipped to come up with the words and described the feeling of being in prison since I was 15 years old. Hopefully my poetry has filled in blanks that my vocabulary has left vacant. Wasted youth is one of my only attempts to categorize my incarceration, existence, life, i.e. wasted youth. Like some of my other poetry I was in the hole when I wrote Wasted Youth. The hole, ad-seg, which is short for administration segregation is basically a jail within a jail; all alone, like a walk along the yard (which is the actual recreation yard for California's ad-seg). Walk along used to be assigned for inmates that are either incapable of programming in the hole with other inmates, or unwilling to--now it's normal program. These actual walk along yards consist of large dog cages no bigger any bedroom in your local housing projects. Trapped like an animal and shackled everywhere you go outside of your cell fosters a like solitary mind-- antisocial behavior. At the time my brother Marté King, CEO of Repent Publications, was still in prison also 3,000 miles away in New Jersey. Another youth that's been depleted by prison bars can define him as well, but his prison has been more mental than physical. Drug use and abuse robs too many people of their youth, just as predatory laws and jails cells have robbed me of mine: warm bodies in them cells, to generate money. I won't waste my time trying to break down the politics of California's most powerful union, the CCPOA (California Correctional Police Officers Association). Let's just say the CCPOA is responsible for a lot of legislation and policy in California. To go against them is a losing battle in California and believe me proponents of this union are in favor of the cattle like policy of over incarceration in California, operating at over 200% capacity, legalized lynching in the court rooms, underfunded schools, and the inability by other politicians to fix a broken system, will continue to be a recipe for more youth to fall victim to a system that relies on them to fail. They've built prisons for our children; and they are banking on their arrival-literally. Sometimes I rub people the wrong way. My experiences in prison have made me develop characteristics to me that were foreign before my imprisonment. My first impression is best with your second glance; and what I meant by this is don't let my exterior fool you. I'm not what I might look like and I'm definitely not like what's printed about me.

Shannon Antonio Smith