ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – A nonprofit organization is helping inmates at jails across New Mexico express themselves through poetry, spoken word and journaling.
Rachel Martinez tells the Albuquerque Journal that her life has been a cycle of drug abuse and incarceration from a young age.
She is one of the inmates at the Metropolitan Detention Center participating in workshops by JustWrite.
She says writing is helping her heal.
JustWrite co-founder Diahndra Grill says writing and creating is a survival strategy that allows people to recreate the world.
She assigns the inmates a prompt which they can chose to follow or stray from.
After they are done, some volunteer to read their works out loud.
Their readings are followed by applause. A few inmates snap their fingers like people do in poetry slams.
