Theodore Deppe

My first day leading the prison writing workshop: Carlos complimented my choosing the chair nearest the door. I read a poem by Whitman that once sent me hitchhiking and Carlos stood up, asked to read a section from his four hundred-page work-in-progress, a poem that turns on his first finding Neruda's "One Year Walk"; he said it lit up the night like a perfect crime, so I left everything — I had no choice—walked three thousand miles to the Pacific . From memory he recited a passage in which his father left the family a small fortune, all counterfeit: though I doubted the facts, I can still see that worn briefcase, almost-perfect hundreds stacked neatly in shrink-wrapped packs. I was young, it took me two weeks to accept that I could teach this lifer nothing. World of concrete floors and everlasting light: he was grateful to God who gave him a blazing mind not granted to anyone living or dead , and wouldn't have changed a word anyway.