Humanity Unlocked podcast series logo | Courtesy Wisconsin Humanities

“There was something happening that was bigger than anything, any one of us or any group of us was doing. It was just too big to be just about poetry. It was a voice restored,” said  Joshua Wells, a formerly incarcerated person, speaking on the Wisconsin Humanities podcast series “Humanity Unlocked.”  

Now in its second season, the podcast offers listeners the stories of those who have been through the prison system and engaged with the humanities – poetry, writing, art and college classes  – discovering not only ways to express themselves but also an identity that’s larger than their criminal records.

The goal of the series is to “focus on amplifying the human stories of incarceration and lived experiences of individuals impacted by the justice system.” A thread through the series is that the humanities matter, especially in some of the darkest places where one’s humanity seems diminished the most.

The podcasts are hosted by Adam Carr, a Milwaukee storyteller, filmmaker, radio producer and historian who sets the narrative and places interviewees’ comments in a larger context. Co-host Dasha Kelly Hamilton is a writer, performance artist and creative change agent and 2021-22 Poet Laureate of Wisconsin.

In Episode 5, “Bead by Bead,” college student James Price talks about gaining discipline from practicing Native American beading at the Stanley Correctional Institute, a discipline he draws on in his college studies. 

Commenting on the story, Hamilton said that, contrary to reductive stereotypes, people who have been incarcerated are “philosophers. There are filmmakers. There are all brands of humans in those buildings (prisons) the same way there are all brands of humans walking around free, so finding a way to feed and fuel those parts of the people in those places is essential.” 

The idea for the podcasts grew out of Hamilton’s work in a poetry exchange with people inside and outside of prison, and producer Jen Rubin’s involvement with the University of Wisconsin’s Odyssey Beyond Bars Project conducting storytelling workshops in prisons.

“I think partly things like art, poetry and storytelling and history are ways that all of us can help find meaning in our life,” said Rubin. “I think Rob (Dr. Robert S. Smith, Director of the Center for Urban Research, Teaching & Outreach, Marquette University) from Episode Five says it really well – ‘If there’s any place we need help finding meaning in our lives, it’s in mass incarceration.’”

Over two years, interviews were conducted with residents inside and out of the prison system and with those who engaged them with poetry and writing courses, publishing newspapers and newsletters, offering space for art shows and teaching college classes.

Very little time is given to why the persons are or were in prison. Most of the podcast recounts their engagement with the humanities. Robert Taliaferro, who is mainly featured in Episode 3: “Three convicts, twenty dollars and a newspaper,” spent 38 years behind bars, but the podcast focuses on his path to become editor of the leading prison newspapers in America, The Prison Mirror.

Episodes

Episode 1: “Death-defying Feats,” takes excerpts from Hamilton’s poetry seminar in the Racine Correctional Institution. She sets up the writing prompts and then we hear commentary of the residents and excerpts of their work.

Episode 2: “A Mic and Five Minutes,” is about the Wisconsin Odyssey Beyond Bars project at Oakhill Correctional Facility where incarcerated students take an English 100 story and then tell  their stories in their own voices in a five-minute presentation.

Episode 3: “Three Convicts, Twenty Dollars, and a Newspaper” tells the history of a prison newspaper from the 1880s started by members of the Jessie James Gang, and the experience of Taliaferro to become an award-winning writer, and also about Shannon Ross, who started a newsletter that reaches 30,000, including those inside and out of prison.

Episode 4: “Art Against the Odds,” details the art-making journey of residents who struggled to find both the resources and encouragement to make art in prison, and the 2023  “Art Against the Odds” show in Milwaukee featuring 250 works by those who are or were incarcerated.

Episode 5: “Bead by Bead,” is a look at the Educational Preparedness Program (EPP) at Marquette University that integrates students enrolled at the Milwaukee campus with those who have been incarcerated or are still in the system.

Episode 6: “It’s Not Just a Vote,” explores those disenfranchised from voting because of their criminal record. Convicted felons in Wisconsin cannot vote until they have served their sentence and probation and parole. There are approximately 45,000 people in the state who are waiting to be allowed to vote.

There’s also more information with each episode, including profiles and information about the criminal justice system.

The first five episodes explore how humanities have affected people’s  lives both inside and outside the system. The  sixth explores  how the legacy of being in prison continues to affect  one’s humanity by witholding the right to vote.

“If your government’s telling you that you don’t count, you know, then how are you supposed to feel like you belong in your community?” said Rubin.

Carr said the sixth episode came out of the larger discussion of recognizing people’s  humanity.“I don’t know that most people would connect this specifically with a humanities curriculum,” he said of voting. In the larger conversation about how people survive the prison system and how they recover a sense of their own humanity when they get out, he said,  “it made sense for the arc of the season.” 

Inside the podcasts

The first five episodes illuminate why engaging with the humanities is more than just a feel-good  exercise.

Peter Moreno, featured in Episode 2: “A Mic and Five Minutes,” is the director of Odyssey Beyond Bars and an attorney and former law professor, who touts the merits of bringing writing classes to inmates to tell their stories.

“When people are given a platform to express themselves and are able to convey their personal story from inside prison in a way that other people can hear and understand, boy that humanizes things in a hurry,” he said.

Mark Español recently served a nine-year prison sentence, and talked about the impact of writing a story from his life and delivering a 5-minute presentation as part of a class he took from Kevin Mullen, an assistant professor of Continuing Studies at UW-Madison and director of  adult education for the UW-Odyssey Project, the larger campaign to bring higher education to low-income adult students.

“It made me feel human again,” Español said. “It made me feel human that class, that environment that he created allows us as inmates to not only be vulnerable, but to get to know each other personally.”

Students in Odyssey Beyond Bars can write about any subject. Español chose to write about one day in his life as a 5-year-old in his apartment and walking into a room where his sister was holding her boyfriend who had been shot.

“You know for almost a decade I’ve sat in prison just wondering where I went wrong, you know, how did I get here?” he said. “It all went back to that apartment. Things that I witnessed, that I was exposed to as a child that I should have never been exposed to, and that story was one day. It sucked that I had to go through that as a 5-year-old.”

Presenting a story has a deep effect, Hamilton said. 

“It shifts the skill sets and the calculation,” she said, describing a way of calculating how to survive that is different from the skills involved in storytelling. Instead of staying in “survival mode,” being able to  able to “process a story,”  to  “convert that memory into a five-minute presentation that is engaging to someone who doesn’t know you and wasn’t at that memory – it is not a small thing.”

Carr said those in the system are often reminded that what counts most about them is their crime or “the biggest mistake you’ve ever made and nothing else,” but engaging with the humanities opens another conversation.

Much of what is offered in prison under the umbrella of rehabilitation, Hamilton said, is premised on the assumption that a  resident has a “deficit” that is addressed with counseling or parenting or financial literacy classes. The humanities operates from a different assumption.

“It’s meeting people where they’re already full,” she said. “It’s giving people an opportunity to lean into that part that doesn’t deplete, that doesn’t diminish their humanity, their creativity.” 

A touching moment in Episode 4: “Art Against the Odds” comes when former incarcerated resident, Sarah Demerath, who missed years with her 14-year-old daughter while in prison, has the opportunity to see her daughter’s reaction to Demerath’s art featured in a large gallery show.

“When we got to the gallery, I had never seen her be so proud of me,” said Demerath. “She’s an artist and she was just as excited as me and she was like, ‘That’s my mom,’ and she was watching me do the interviews with the news and she was buzzing around the entire exhibit with this huge smile. Never in my life did I ever think that my art would be in a gallery, let alone my daughter and mom would be there with me to see it and it was beautiful.”

Listen to the podcast at wisconsinhumanities.org/podcast/.