"I speak the pass-word primeval, I give the sign of democracy,By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of on the same terms."
By JENNIFER CRANDALL, AS TOLD TO LIZ HILDRETHMontgomery, October 2015
I have to thank AL.com columnist John Archibald for inviting me to the prison for a story he was working on. After visiting the prison, I reached out to Bob Horton, a public information manager at the Alabama Department of Corrections. He introduced me to a number of people who were incarcerated.
Ultimately, I chose to film Demetrius Leslie and Frederick George at Kilby Correctional Facility in Montgomery, and Patricia Marshall and Tammy Cooper, at the Montgomery Women's Facility.
I have to thank AL.com columnist John Archibald for inviting me to the prison for a story he was working on. After visiting the prison, I reached out to Bob Horton, a public information manager at the Alabama Department of Corrections. He introduced me to a number of people who were incarcerated. Ultimately, I chose to film Demetrius Leslie and Frederick George at Kilby Correctional Facility in Montgomery, and Patricia Marshall and Tammy Cooper, at the Montgomery Women's Facility.
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The wardens gave us quite a bit of time and space to do our work, but being in a space where we had more restrictions gave me an appreciation for very simple things we take for granted. Freedom of movement, freedom of speech.Ultimately, everything turned out well. In general, I wish we had had more time there. I wanted to get to know Demetrius, Fred, Patricia and Tammy better.But I guess I always say that about everyone...DEMETRIUS LESLIEMany prisoners have jobs in prison and Demetrius's job is being the barber. After he finished reading for us he immediately shared some thoughts on Walt Whitman."My first instinct that it was some famous slave that had written a poem," Demetrius said. "It was talking about slaves and prisoners. The way he had written it, it was just as if someone black had written it. I was dumbfounded to know that it was a white guy that had written this poem, what, in the 1800s? I'm not a big poem analyst, so I don't read a lot of poems, but I'll look further into reading more poems of guys that are uh ... of Caucasian persuasion, so to speak. Because man, it was amazing, it was amazing."To Demetrius: Your read was amazing too. Thanks for saying 'yes' to this.PATRICIA MARSHALLThere was something light about Patricia that I found intriguing. When I'm filming, I'm seeing you for what appears to be obvious about you, and I'm trying to not look at you for those things too. With Patricia, I was really struck by a lightness she gave off, juxtaposed with being where she is.Right when we said we were finished filming, Patricia joked, "I’m famous?! Are we going to see it? Are we going to be on TV?"And she also offered her thoughts about Whitman."He's deep. He's really deep," Patricia said. "He must have went through something to write this. Treated some kind of way or something because it just strictly lets you know that he feel like everyone is equal. Everyone is on the same base. We all serve the same God, Jesus, whoever, he's all in one."Patricia had never read Whitman before. Not that she could remember at least. When I asked if she planned on reading more, she immediately said yes."I would read the whole thing! And there would probably be just certain parts that I would like and would catch my attention. I want to read more. Tammy and I had to look in the dictionary to look up some words, to pretty much give us a clue of what was going on, and once we found some of the words, and it was like 'age,' uh, 'the universe,' and all this, then we realized what was going on with the poem."Before we left, Patricia told us, "We appreciate y'all picking us. We thought y'all had forgot, it's been so long ago."To Patricia: We didn't forget you. And we appreciate you too.
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FREDERICK GEORGEI like to observe people and I liked watching Fred watch things. He seemed really perceptive. I could see him observing, taking a lot in, and I realized, he's seeing different things than I am. I get the sense he can read people. He read me. Called me out during a moment of discomfort that I hadn't thought I had shown.We didn't have as much time with Fred as the other three. We were somewhat rushed, and I just walked away feeling like I wanted to give Fred more—more space and more time to give of himself what we were asking of him. The others had more time to find themselves in the moment.A couple things made Fred's shoot more challenging. He was reading with a lot of his peers and the warden milling around. And we were somewhat rushed."I'm alright with it," he assured me. "If they weren't back there, it'd be a lot easier."Doing this in front of your peers makes it more difficult. I'd be shy trying to step in to the moment, read and "perform" somewhat for the camera while others look on. Or maybe Fred just meant it'd be easier to read if they weren't all there because they were noisy. I'm not actually sure, come to think of it.Because Fred's job requires him to fix things, we had him on his knees for the entire reading with one of his tools by his side. That couldn't have been too comfortable either. He had watched Demetrius during his reading and joked, "This still ain't as good as the barber gig."The warden told us that we had to wrap up not long after we started filming Fred. It was coming on dinner time, if I remember right, and we couldn't get in the way of that. We couldn't spend any more time with Fred but we thanked him for what he was able to give us."No problem!" he said. "Any day of the week!"To Fred: Thanks for the good attitude. We're sorry we didn't have more time with you.TAMMY COOPERI found myself wanting to defend Tammy from Tammy. She was very hard on herself. I was drawn to her because she was giving us so much with her read, but she kept apologizing for mistakes she thought she was making and saying she could do better.Tammy had read some Walt Whitman before. Leaves of Grass and a couple other shorter poems.She gave me her interpretation of Verse 24."It was basically about: everything works together," she said. "It starts out with the word 'cosmos' and that kinda brings everything into harmony. To me he showed that everything is the same. That nothing's better or greater or smaller than the next thing."She said she enjoyed the reading, but she noticed Walt Whitman isn't exactly the easiest poet to read aloud."I actually enjoyed it," she said. "But it did show me I can get tongue-tied in the middle of stuff, because I'm an excellent reader. And that just made no sense. I wasn’t nervous until I sat down either!"For Tammy: We respectfully disagree. You did perfect and we wouldn't change a thing.
VERSE 24
Walt Whitman, a kosmos, of Manhattan the son,Turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating, drinking and breeding,No sentimentalist, no stander above men and women or apart from them,No more modest than immodest.Unscrew the locks from the doors!Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!Whoever degrades another degrades me,And whatever is done or said returns at last to me.Through me the afflatus surging and surging, through me the cur- rent and index.I speak the pass-word primeval, I give the sign of democracy,By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of on the same terms.Through me many long dumb voices,Voices of the interminable generations of prisoners and slaves,Voices of the diseas'd and despairing and of thieves and dwarfs,Voices of cycles of preparation and accretion,And of the threads that connect the stars, and of wombs and of the father-stuff,And of the rights of them the others are down upon,Of the deform'd, trivial, flat, foolish, despised,Fog in the air, beetles rolling balls of dung.Through me forbidden voices,Voices of sexes and lusts, voices veil'd and I remove the veil,Voices indecent by me clarified and transfigur'd.I do not press my fingers across my mouth,I keep as delicate around the bowels as around the head and heart,Copulation is no more rank to me than death is.I believe in the flesh and the appetites,Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle.Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touch'd from,The scent of these arm-pits aroma finer than prayer,This head more than churches, bibles, and all the creeds.If I worship one thing more than another it shall be the spread of my own body, or any part of it,Translucent mould of me it shall be you!Shaded ledges and rests it shall be you!Firm masculine colter it shall be you!Whatever goes to the tilth of me it shall be you!You my rich blood! your milky stream pale strippings of my life!Breast that presses against other breasts it shall be you!My brain it shall be your occult convolutions!Root of wash'd sweet-flag! timorous pond-snipe! nest of guarded duplicate eggs! it shall be you!Mix'd tussled hay of head, beard, brawn, it shall be you!Trickling sap of maple, fibre of manly wheat, it shall be you!Sun so generous it shall be you!Vapors lighting and shading my face it shall be you!You sweaty brooks and dews it shall be you!Winds whose soft-tickling genitals rub against me it shall be you!Broad muscular fields, branches of live oak, loving lounger in my winding paths, it shall be you!Hands I have taken, face I have kiss'd, mortal I have ever touch'd, it shall be you.I dote on myself, there is that lot of me and all so luscious,Each moment and whatever happens thrills me with joy,I cannot tell how my ankles bend, nor whence the cause of my faintest wish,Nor the cause of the friendship I emit, nor the cause of the friendship I take again.That I walk up my stoop, I pause to consider if it really be,A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the meta- physics of books.To behold the day-break!The little light fades the immense and diaphanous shadows,The air tastes good to my palate.Hefts of the moving world at innocent gambols silently rising freshly exuding,Scooting obliquely high and low.Something I cannot see puts upward libidinous prongs,Seas of bright juice suffuse heaven.The earth by the sky staid with, the daily close of their junction,The heav'd challenge from the east that moment over my head,The mocking taunt. See then whether you shall be master!
