Ronald King became a Waterways’ teaching artist after having served a sentence for a juvenile crime. He earned a diploma while incarcerated, studying writing and psychology. He joined Mark Crawford and Matthew Hejna-Luque to publish, Connections, a literary magazine. Poets in the Schools hired him to teach poetry to young women at the Hegeman Diagnostic Reception Center in East New York, Brooklyn and he also worked with Louis Reyes Rivera. His Waterways assignment was as teacher at the Rose M. Singer High School in the woman’s house of detention on Riker’s Island. He used his skills to teach and counsel. His student, Dorothy, was published in Streams 3.
Young Mothers in Jail
by Dorothy Jasper
Sweet mothers, jail moms
With stomachs big and round
Full of so much life
In such a place, a state of
Bars and slamming doors
Hard core times, young mothers
Babes with babies. Pretty moms
Used and abused. Jailed mothers
Hope your babies stay free.
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