qarrtsiluni

by Ann E. Michael and Ken Lamberton

Imprisonment spurred many responses; the interpretations ranged from the literal to the metaphoric, as we’d hoped, and included meditations on its opposite: freedom. There were birds and bars and varieties of cells. There were visual images that summed up the sense of detainment succinctly and poems that led surprisingly to the sense of being ensnared or bound. We received submissions from people currently incarcerated and from others who have been in prison in the past or who have a loved one behind bars. Artists and writers expressed being imprisoned by relationships, or through physical limitations, or because of social or class barriers. Some of the submissions are full of rage, others of resignation, others, hope. We feel trapped, it turns out, by ourselves as well as by others. This is no surprise to a human being, yet some of the pieces we received were revelatory in their beauty or their honesty. We observed that few of the submissions dwelt on, or even dealt with, the punitive aspect of incarceration.

Interesting to consider: a relationship between this issue of qarrtsiluni and a previous theme, “The Crowd.” Imprisonment usually implies loneliness and isolation; but as the crowd issue paradoxically highlighted individuality, the theme of imprisonment seems, to me, to illuminate how common the sense of feeling trapped is: a thing we share, culturally, socially, psychologically. Being bound inherently awakens in us the desire to move — to struggle toward freedom. We learn, in that struggle, that freedom has as many forms as imprisonment does. When we feel surprised by something we think we know, understanding deepens. Editing “Imprisonment” offered that kind of revelation continuously. Many thanks to those who sent us their heartfelt work.

For bios of Ann and Ken, see the call for submissions.