When the Smoke Cleared: Attica Prison Poems and Journal

by Celes Tisdale (Editor), Mark Nowak (Introduction)

Overview

Following the Attica prison uprising in September 1971, Celes Tisdale--a poet and then professor at Buffalo State College--began leading poetry workshops with those incarcerated at Attica. Tisdale's workshop created a space of radical Black creativity and solidarity, in which poets who lived through the uprising were able to turn their experiences into poetry. The poems written by Tisdale's students were published as Betcha Ain't: Poems from Attica in 1974. When the Smoke Cleared contains the entirety of Betcha Ain't, Tisdale's own poems and journal entries from the three years he taught at Attica, a previously unpublished collection of poems by Attica poets, and a critical introduction by poet Mark Nowak. In addition to the poetry, Tisdale's journal entries give readers a unique opportunity to experience what it was like to enter Attica as an educator and return week after week to discuss poetry. When the Smoke Cleared showcases these poets' achievements, their desire for self-determination, and their historical role as storytellers of Black life in a prison monitored exclusively by white guards and administrators.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781478018940
Publisher:	Duke University Press
Publication date:	11/29/2022
Pages:	152
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.33(d)

About the Author

Celes Tisdale is Distinguished Emeritus Professor of English at the State University of New York at Buffalo and editor of Betcha Ain’t: Poems from Attica and We Be Poetin’.

Table of Contents

Preface  ix
Introduction: Celes Tisdale’s Poetry Workshop at Attica / Mark Nowak  1
Introduction to the Original Printing of Betcha Ain’t: Poems from Attica (Detroit: Broadside Press, 1974 / Celes Tisdale  25
Betcha Ain’t: Poems from Attica  29
Celes Tisdale’s Attica Poem and Journals  71
When the Smoke Cleared: More Poems from Attica  103
Epilogue: Remember This  133
Acknowledgments  135
Appendix: Workshop Documents  137

What People are Saying About This

Ishmael Reed

“Celes Tisdale has been able to inspire men in one of the country’s most notorious hellholes, Attica prison, where men were mowed down like dogs under the directions of an ambitious governor who wanted to shed his reputation as a liberal and show racists in his party that he could practice tough love. The poems from Tisdale’s workshop stand up next to any of those published in contemporary anthologies. Shouldn’t those who manage our public schools be embarrassed? Is it because Tisdale is a poet? A Black man? Someone who directs his students to literature from writers who share their experience, instead of a curriculum that is little more than a loyalty oath to Eurocentrism?”

Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration - Nicole R. Fleetwood

“The publication of this collection comes at an urgent moment as activists and freedom fighters are forcing institutions and public culture to reckon with the history and present reality of anti-Black violence, police brutality and the centuries-long subjugation of Black people. Offering an insightful and historically specific contribution to the need to better understand and abolish the carceral state, When the Smoke Cleared provides an invaluable contribution to prison studies, the Black radical tradition, and the history of the Attica uprising.”

Editorial Reviews

"When the Smoke Cleared . . . beautifully documents what it means to bear witness while teaching, and the great responsibility that comes with ushering voices from the inside of prison walls to the outside. . . . When the Smoke Cleared is a time capsule of the sharp minds, open hearts, and courageous souls of men brutalized by the United States criminal justice system."

PEN America - Malcolm Tariq

"A riveting contribution to contemporary literary history and recent social histories of the uprising. This volume poses far-reaching questions about prisons as sites of cultural production and the mobilization of Black political subjectivity at the beginning of what we now call the age of mass incarceration."

Los Angeles Review of Books - David Sherman

"A valuable glimpse into the beginnings of prison and justice writing programs in the US, especially ones focused on the African American experience, as well as a reminder of the historical and continued importance of such workshops in transforming the US carceral system."

World Literature Today - Timothy Bradford

"Among the many strengths of this anthology is a blunt acknowledgment of the uprising as part of much larger historical mechanisms: namely, the last gasps of the civil rights movement and the nation’s violent reaction to Black liberation. . . . The poems serve as a bulwark against the forgetting of the Attica uprising itself, but they also document the inner life and creative expression of the incarcerated—making for a visceral and intimate argument in favor of prison abolition."

The Nation - J. Howard Rosier

"When the Smoke Cleared . . . reveals a great deal about survival in the wake of state violence and about the uses of prison education. . . . Supporting efforts like Tisdale’s are important, not because they reform the institution, but because they can aid incarcerated people in building inside-outside relations and solidaristic organizing across facilities."

Dissent - Elias Rodriques