Secrets from a Prison Cell: A Convict's Eyewitness Accounts of the Dehumanizing Drama of Life Behind Bars

by Tony D. Vick, Michael T. McRay, Richard Rohr (Foreword by)

Overview

Tony Vick is serving two life sentences for murder. After nearly twenty years in prison, Tony has literally taken to the pen to document firsthand what life is like behind bars. This book--handwritten by Tony and later transcribed by outside friends--indirectly challenges the reader to engage prison reform as one of the most important social issues of this generation, wondering if society can shift its emphasis from retribution to rehabilitation. Tony's new book describes the violent, even horrific, incidents that occur in prison, incidents mostly hidden in the shadows, away from public awareness. It tells you the stories that those invested in incarceration would rather remain secret. As captivating as it is timely, Secrets from a Prison Cell shortens the distance between those outside and inside prison walls. Through personal stories, essays, and poetry, Tony Vick's book pulls back the curtain on a world invisible to most people, dramatically revealing the realities of life in prison and the power of love to fight dehumanization. For Tony, writing this book has never been about money but about the message. Any proceeds from sales of the book will be donated to the No Exceptions Prison Collective, a non-profit organization that advocates for prison reform. (https://noexceptions.net) No Exception's mission is furthered by its very name, referencing the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that abolishes slavery, except for those incarcerated in our nation's prisons. Slavery still exists in America!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781498294348
Publisher:	Wipf & Stock Publishers
Publication date:	02/06/2018
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	122
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Tony Vick was born in 1962, in Clarksville, Tennessee, into a home of Southern Baptist parents and an older brother. His father was a barber and gospel singer, and his mother was a stay-at-home mom. Tony’s parents and brother have all died during Tony’s incarceration. After excelling in high school, Tony received the “Outstanding Business Student” award and a scholarship to study business at the University of Tennessee. He worked in retail sales, banking, and, at one time, owned and operated a Southern-style restaurant.

Tony entered prison twenty years ago after living thirty-four years in Freedomsville as a closeted gay man. He is currently serving two life sentences for murder. While in prison, Tony has worked as a GED teaching assistant, clerk, and prison newspaper editor. He has been involved with Inside-Out prison programs where free-world college students travel to prisons and join incarcerated students as classmates in post-secondary courses built around dialogue, collaboration and experiential learning. Between 2010 and 2014, Tony completed five semesters in Vanderbilt University’s Divinity School Inside-Out program.

In 2013, Tony’s essay, “Look at Me,” was published in a book, Turning Teaching Inside Out: A Pedagogy of Transformation for Community-Based Education, by Simone Weil Davis and Barbara Sherr Roswell. In 2016, Tony’s thoughts on forgiveness were included in Michael McRay’s book, Where the River Bends: Considering Forgiveness in the Lives of Prisoners. Tony continues to write essays and poetry that challenge readers to address prison reform as one of the most important social issues of this generation.



 

Michael T. McRay is a writer, advocate, educator, speaker, and the author of Where the River Bends (2015). He is a former volunteer prison chaplain and close friends with Tony Vick.
Tony Vick is incarcerated in Tennessee serving two life sentences. He is the author of Secrets from a Prison Cell: A Convict’s Eyewitness Accounts of the Dehumanizing Drama of Life Behind (Cascade, 2018).

Michael T. McRay (MPhil, Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation, Trinity College Dublin at Belfast) is a writer, advocate, adjunct professor, and storyteller. He served as a volunteer prison chaplain before being banned by the warden for organizing, is the cofounder of No Exceptions Prison Collective, and is founder and cohost of Tenx9 Nashville Storytelling. He is the author of Letters from "Apartheid Street" (2013).

Table of Contents

Foreword Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM ix

Preface Michael T. McRay xiii

Acknowledgments xix

When You Smell a Flower xxi

1 I Am Prisoner #276187 1

I Was, I Am 5

2 I'm Hungry, Feed Me 6

Break Bread With Me 12

3 Cutting Through the Pain 13

My Cocoon 17

Stay With Me 19

4 Beyond the Living Room 20

I See a Home 24

5 The Art of Redemption 25

The Perfect House 30

6 A Little Kindness 31

Endless Love 33

7 Sentenced To Death: By Old Age 34

I Shall Not Die Alone 40

Maybe Tonight 41

8 Monsters Don't Live Under the Bed 42

In Those Moments 48

Taking Flight 49

9 Buster 50

My hands touched God's hands today 58

Once a Slave…Always a Slave? 59

10 Is It Just This? 61

Is It Just This? 64

It's not what i imagined 65

11 Wheelchairs, Walkers, and Wishes 66

Walk On 70

12 Say No to Photoshopping 71

Reality Monster 75

13 Hanging On in Tandem 77

Hang On 80

14 It Is Possible 83

Change: It Is Possible 93

It's Been Too Long 94

About the Authors:

Tony D. Vick 95

Michael T. McRay 97

Bibliography 99

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“The power of Secrets from a Prison Cell is that it unflinchingly looks the reader directly in the eye, makes no claim of innocence or excuses for crime, and demonstrates that accountability and forgiveness are mutually enforcing, not in contradiction as our current failed system would have us believe. After reading this book, it will be all of us—citizens, leaders, teachers, clergy, lawmakers—who are left naked and morally compromised if we fail to act to transform a soul-crushing system of retribution into a process and means of restoration. Tony Vick has given us the gift of discomfort. May we use it well.”


—Jeannie Alexander, Director, No Exceptions Prison Collective





“Prisons reveal the secreted nature of the regime that creates them. Two millennia ago John of Patmos pulled back the veil and exposed Rome’s monstrous essence. Seven decades ago, Elie Wiesel’s revelations of the concentration camps unmasked the sadistic bloodlust of the Nazi’s reign. In this tradition Tony Vick’s exposé of the prison-industrial complex divulges the concealed character of the American Empire. Like John’s and Elie’s revelations, Tony’s call is neither for despair nor pity. No, here is a summons to action. Read this book and you must join the Resistance.”


—Richard C. Goode, Lipscomb University





“2.2 million people are in U.S. prisons and jails, with millions more on probation and parole, but such statistics about our ever-expanding carceral society tend to prove powerless at touching hearts or even minds. Tony Vick’s stories and poems have the creative power of word and image to make the prisoner’s life-task of correction and rehabilitation a contribution to the urgently needed conversation among and within ourselves about who we are and what we might become as twenty-first-century Americans.”


—Bruce T. Morrill, Professor, Vanderbilt Divinity School

Editorial Reviews

The power of Secrets from a Prison Cell is that it unflinchingly looks the reader directly in the eye, makes no claim of innocence or excuses for crime, and demonstrates that accountability and forgiveness are mutually enforcing, not in contradiction as our current failed system would have us believe. After reading this book, it will be all of us—citizens, leaders, teachers, clergy, lawmakers—who are left naked and morally compromised if we fail to act to transform a soul-crushing system of retribution into a process and means of restoration. Tony Vick has given us the gift of discomfort. May we use it well.”


—Jeannie Alexander, Director, No Exceptions Prison Collective





“Prisons reveal the secreted nature of the regime that creates them. Two millennia ago John of Patmos pulled back the veil and exposed Rome’s monstrous essence. Seven decades ago, Elie Wiesel’s revelations of the concentration camps unmasked the sadistic bloodlust of the Nazi’s reign. In this tradition Tony Vick’s exposé of the prison-industrial complex divulges the concealed character of the American Empire. Like John’s and Elie’s revelations, Tony’s call is neither for despair nor pity. No, here is a summons to action. Read this book and you must join the Resistance.”


—Richard C. Goode, Lipscomb University





“2.2 million people are in U.S. prisons and jails, with millions more on probation and parole, but such statistics about our ever-expanding carceral society tend to prove powerless at touching hearts or even minds. Tony Vick’s stories and poems have the creative power of word and image to make the prisoner’s life-task of correction and rehabilitation a contribution to the urgently needed conversation among and within ourselves about who we are and what we might become as twenty-first-century Americans.”


—Bruce T. Morrill, Professor, Vanderbilt Divinity School

From the Publisher