Q & A With 2023-2024 Poet Laureate Catherine Lafleur
Catherine Lafleur is an incarcerated writer who is 2023-2024’s recipient of the Luis Angel Hernandez Poet Laureateship which was established in memory of a fellow incarcerated poet. This platform celebrates the creativity and literary achievements of incarcerated individuals. It provides a unique opportunity for incarcerated writers to share their stories and inspire others through their work.
The vision for of the Laureateship is to increase visibility of Florida’s prison population, drawing attention to the lives and living conditions of incarcerated people; advocate for widespread, cost-free humanities education and programs in carceral settings nationwide; change public perception about incarcerated people,and assert the basic humanity of all living beings. We hope it provides a model for others to replicate across the country. Read more about this honor here.
Q&A
What do you want readers of your poetry to know about you?
The most important thing to know about anyone as well as yourself is this, you are not the sum total of your worst actions.
Can you share one of your favorite poems you've written while incarcerated and what inspired you to write it?
"Pantoum for Darren Ranney" is about the killing of an inmate at a men's prison in South Florida. He was mentally ill and boiled alive in a cage shower. Media articles say he screamed in agony for hours.
I was inspired to write it because Darren is not the only victim crushed by the jaws of incarceration. There is a kind of moral relativism at work in the carceral system. The moral norms protecting the dignity and humanity of incarcerated men and women are being eroded by the practice of punishment over rehabilitation.
We must know the truth of these killings. Otherwise our community is facing the acceptance of Moral Nihilism, a belief that nothing matters, not even the truth. Today, this is filtering throughout prison culture, and not just in Florida. It must be stopped.
Lives are important. Lives are worthy of dignity and humane treatment not only for me, for you, but for every person...even correctional officers.
Pantoum for Darren Ranney
The cold-eyed prison cam witnessed Darren's last walk.
Locked in a caged shower no one can escape.
His skin a ghost melted peeled from tiles.
The screams lasted hours.
Locked in a caged shower no one can escape
Boiling hot the water
Darren's screams lasted hours
Against the rules, a danger.
Boiling hot the water,
a convenience for guards needing a break.
Against the rules, a danger
for Ramen, coffee, and tea.
A convenience for guards needing a break
claiming water calms soothes him.
for Ramen, coffee, and tea
Until Darren is compliant in body and mind.
Claiming water calms and soothes Darren,
purified like a baptism.
until he is compliant in body and mind.
Prison lives swirl, blood washed down the drain.
Purified like a baptism,
Darren died without a mercy.
Prison lives swirl, blood washed down the drain
and he curled child-like upon the floor.
He died without a mercy,
the cold-eyed prison cam witnessed his last walk
and curled child-like upon the floor
Darren's skin a ghost melted and peeled from the tiles.
Some of your works share similar themes of a love of reading and lexophilia, particularly in "The First Step." You describe being inebriated by Paley, Collins, and Plath - where does this love of poetry come from?
More than two decades ago, I was kept in solitary confinement for 480 days. It was brutal. I became disconnected from my mind. Poetry saved me. I was allotted a tiny pen no longer than my pinkie finger. Since they did not allow me books, I wrote poems I could remember from Edgar Allen Poe to Shakespere, even Tehillim (Psalms). Paper was limited to five sheets per month. When I ran out, I would write on my skin. Rossetti's [Christina Rossetti] words, "Who has seen the wind neither you nor I/ but when the trees bow down the wind is passing by" reassured me that I was not disappearing or erased and one day I would be visible again.
Memorize your favorite poems. In dark days you can find refuge in them until "the rains have passed and it is the time of singing birds."
Why does this medium resonate with you ?
Poetry is so powerful it can cross boundaries and sneak through our defenses. It sticks in the mind like a burr. I am decades away from childhood yet I still remember a childhood taunt. I see England, I see France, I see Catherine's underpants.
Poetry sticks to you. There is no defense. I hope to write the kinds of poems you can't forget.
Resurrection City 2023
A city stands in the Everglades found by
Stained buildings slapdash patched and painted
Leaked inside shelter the women bound by
Uniforms and rags worn by time-stitched concertina
Wire blue on blue on blue threaded round to
Keep us who are not you according to our numbers
Never by names so many they astound this
Crowd draining all our broken hearts and lives
Hope changes you see we are wound with
You not far from Resurrection City 1967
The ideals of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. are woven into your poetry (Resurrection City 2023). Why were you inspired by him and do you think his ideas have application in the carceral system?
One of the main lessons I have learned with Exchange for Change is if we want prison reform then the conversation about incarceration must be changed. Prisons can be very violent places. When anger manifests, whether from inmates or staff, it escalates into dehumanizing reactions.
In 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. announced a plan for the Poor People's Campaign in Washington D.C. He called for citizens to take sustained action through occupation until positive changes occured to address poverty and unemployment. Despite President Lyndon Johnson's war on poverty, nearly 35 million Americans (19% of the population) lived below the poverty line. King recognized poverty affected people of all races and regions, and sought a diverse coalition to demand federal initiatives such as full employment, guaranteed annual income, anti-poverty programs, and housing for those in need.
We must learn to embrace peace. Dr. King preached a policy of non-violence responsible for changes in racial equality, civil rights, and voting rights. The poor people's campaign brought about free school lunches, food stamp assistance, and head start programs. The same successes of Resurrection City can still be at work today whether through the women's marchers, the Dreamers, or prison reform.
Through Exchange for Change, I have been privileged to be a part of Prison Visits for Change and the Frederick Douglass Program. It's the prison version of Resurrection City. You can come to meet and greet those men and women incarcerated. Through these encounters we can chat. I have lost my fear of people who live in the free world. I no longer view free citizens as an angry mob howling for revanche and the blood and pain of inmates. On Wednesdays, we all meet in a modern day Resurrection City where we can go beyond titles and labels. We are each humans having a conversation with another human.
“Out beyond ideas of rightdoing and wrongdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”
Do you have a mission or goal in mind with your poetry in terms of how it impacts others, in or out of prison?
I write poems to bring you into the world of incarceration. It's hard to define what the mission of prison is. Kafkaesque? Monty Pythonesque? Sublime or a horror show? Everything is possible and also impossible. I hope to emphasize our humanity, the prisoners as well as the officers.
The prison system in our country is profoundly broken. Although my poetry often incorporates this theme, I use form to underline it. Every poem I write ruptures the accepted form whether sestina, pantoum, or Ghazal. When someone reads one of my broken poems, I want it to stick in the mind. I want you to think "Hmmm...something is wrong here."
As Rumi wrote, " Out beyond ideas of rightdoing and wrongdoing there is a field. I'll meet you there."