Punching the Air

In the poem “Pipeline,” Amal remembers walking in line in kindergarten when he’s made to walk similarly in prison. He can barely tell the difference between prison and school based on how the prison looks. In “Conversations with God II,” Amal sits with Stanford (the officer who let Amal fall and called him names) and is asked questions about his anger and if he plans on harming himself. Amal feels like “these questions / are really / suggestions” because Stanford shows a lack of care (123). When with the superintendent of the juvenile detention center, Cheryl-Ann Buford, Amal is told about his classes and what his days will look like. Ms. Buford is white, and Amal doesn’t believe she will truly help him. Thinking back to his time in regular school, Amal remembers that his school has a zero-tolerance policy for bad behaviors. He makes the connection that the zero-tolerance policy is preparing kids for prison because they must do what they are told or face punishment. In his first class, Amal meets his math teacher, who is a Black man—the first Black man to teach Amal math. The work that he is given is below Amal’s grade level. Ms. Rinaldi, his art teacher from before he was incarcerated, had encouraged Amal to apply to a fancy art program. He got into the program, but because of his conviction he can’t go. “Schooled III” describes how Amal was treated in Ms. Rinaldi’s AP Art History class as “the only black kid in the room” while looking at paintings of only white people (132). Even with his talent, Amal failed Ms. Rinaldi’s class because he put his head down and would walk out of class. In the juvenile detention center math class, Amal tries to avoid conflict so that he doesn’t get removed like another student named Kadon does. 

During free time, Amal finds some crayons and paper, and it feels like a “bit of freedom in [his] hands” (139). He draws himself walking towards freedom, but Kadon (the boy who was forcefully removed from his math class earlier) grabs the notebook from Amal to see how he will react. Amal is still holding his crayon “like a weapon” and a white officer comes over to see what is happening (141). The officer gets close to Amal so that Amal can see that he has a tattoo of a Black baby with a rope around its neck on his arm. The tattoo is offensive, but when Amal gets up to push the table away, the tattooed officer and four other officers grab him and press him to the floor. In “Cubism,” Amal is back in his cell. He feels boxed in because “there’s no future in these four walls” (147). He remembers, though, that his name means hope and that he is still alive and breathing.

“Conversations with God IV” describes visiting day at the juvenile detention center. Amal sees Umi, but he also sees his lawyer Clyde, whose “voice is like chains” (150). They want to appeal Amal’s conviction, but because Jeremy Mathis, the kid who Amal is accused of hurting, is still in a coma, it will take a long time for the appeal to go through. After an hour, Amal’s officer Stanford takes Amal back to his cell. “Conversations with God V” talks about how seeing his mother makes Amal feel like “there’s a hole in [his] heart” that his lawyer put there (153). 

Amal watches what is going on in the dayroom through the small window in his cell door. He sees a smiling woman walk in and that the other kids try to smooth out their clothes when she is there. In “Conversations with God VI,” Amal tells Ms. Buford the superintendent that he wants to be in the woman’s class. He discovers that the woman teaches a poetry class, but that only well-behaved kids get to attend. Ms. Buford tells him that he’ll have to earn his way into the poetry class and hands him some letters from home. One of the letters is from Zenobia, Amal’s crush from school, which makes Amal feel “like [his] heart is / about to split open” (161). Zenobia’s letter says that she believes in his innocence and that she will write to him if he wants her to. The letter makes Amal want to cry because he didn’t even know that Zenobia knew who he is and now he can’t really talk to her. “Microphone” talks about how instead of crying, Amal makes a beat on his door and raps about his predicament. People listen to Amal’s words and they get Kadon’s attention. Kadon, a troublemaker who took Amal’s drawing earlier, tells Amal that they should connect. In the mess hall later, Kadon sits with Amal and makes his own rap. Other guys come over and ask “Ain’t you that kid?” because they recognize Amal and know what he allegedly did to get there (171). Kadon warns Amal that other guys are watching him because of his alleged crime. “Conversations with God VII” describes the superintendent Ms. Buford’s reaction to Kadon and Amal making an alliance. She tells Amal that rapping isn’t going to get him a record deal and that “This is serious and this is your life,” while Amal recognizes that she’s just trying to get him to shut up (173). Before lights out that night, Amal writes an acrostic poem for Zenobia. Each letter of her name is a description of her as Amal writes “Always keep me in your heart” because “I will always remember / you remembering me” (177). 

“Guernica” describes Amal being beaten up in the shower by two guys who recognized Amal for his alleged crimes. Amal takes

blow after blow

after blow after blow

until [his] breath is a dragon

hot flames

ignite in [his] soul (180).

They only hit him where nobody can see. In “Dust,” Amal remembers how his mother warned him that the prison will try to crush his spirit, but that dust always rises. Amal tells her, “Don’t call me baby / not here, not now,” in which Umi responded by saying, “You are my life / and you are life itself / Amal—” (182-83). Amal struggles to see his mom sacrificing so much by traveling to the prison, but she tells him she will keep fighting for him. He asks for his Uncle Rashon, a father-figure to Amal, and his mom says it will take a while for him to be ready to see Amal in the prison.

Kadon, Amal’s new ally in prison, tells Amal that everyone knows what happened in East Hills with Jeremy Mathis. When talking with Ms. Buford (the superintendent) again in “Conversations with God VIII,” Amal expresses that if he can “write and draw and paint / maybe [he’ll] get out of here alive” (189). She asks if anything happened to Amal that would make him think he won’t leave alive, but he does not tell her about being beaten up. “White Space III” talks about how his old art teacher Ms. Rinaldi used to say he was disruptive and would keep failing him even though “She thought she could save [him]” (192).

In “The Persistence of Memory,” Amal describes what happened at the basketball courts with his friend Omari the night of his arrest. The basketball courts are in the newly gentrified section of the neighborhood, where “white boys / didn’t care about no lines / The world belonged to them” (197). Things got heated when Omari told the white kids to get off the court. Of the five of them, Amal was the only one who went to trial, while the other boys were sent straight to a juvenile detention center. “Blind Justice II” talks about how Amal and his friends being Black meant that they are always “wrong,” while Jeremy Mathis and his friends are always “right” because they are white (200-01). In “Schooled VI,” Amal sees similarities between school and being in the juvenile detention center. He questions what the point of learning is if convicted felons can’t get a job once they get out. Amal also asked questions like that in Ms. Rinaldi’s class. When learning about different artists in her AP Art History class, he asked, “Did other people around the world paint / or just old white men from Europe?” (207).

Kadon tries to make sure that Amal is doing what he is supposed to do in the prison. Other kids join in and start jeering at Amal for what he allegedly did to Jeremy Mathis. Kadon makes it clear that he and his friends have Amal’s back and they are together with him. In “Brotherhood II,” Amal doesn’t want “to be a part of no / gang or crew,” but Kadon insists that Amal needs them (214). Finally, Amal gets to join poetry class in “Art School.” The teacher’s name is Imani Dawson, and she considers herself a

prison abolitionist

[……………………….]

that is fighting to abolish

the prison industrial complex

as we know it (218-19).

Imani asks the young men to write their mistakes and misgivings, which causes Amal to walk out of the room and back into his cell. In his cell, he completes the assignment by writing the mistakes he’s made that got him convicted and the misgivings he had that caused him to make those mistakes. Amal has a meltdown and bangs on the walls of his cell.