Leaving Death Row is the first published collection of poet, essayist, and playwright Reginald Sinclair Lewis. Poems from this collection have been printed over the years in various journals, some prison related, others not, but fortunately they have been anthologized, enhancing their potency, developing their import, and under the title, Leaving Death Row, creating a context in which to look at the American prison. You don't have to be a poet or a lover of poetry to understand or appreciate this book. Lewis's images are vivid, often cinematic, and continuously palpable, harnessed by emotion. In "Wanna Go Home," Lewis writes:

Been so long since I sat at
Momma's Kitchen table,
Sizzling with hot buttered
biscuits, deep
Fried chicken, and slippery
chocolate cake.
Oh, I want to go back....

In this poem, as in many others, Lewis is describing a world and a life far beyond the prison wall; yet the perspective is fixed, always from behind the razorwire. The title of this collection, Leaving Death Row, may at first be confusing. Is Lewis off death row? What happened? Was he exonerated? Was his sentence commuted to life? But after reading through these poems, the meaning becomes clear. Lewis hasn't left, but he leaves all the time, guiding his readers through the "dry sands of Ethiopia," "tiny war torn villages in Yugoslavia," and dark nightclubs in Paris. And he takes us also into the places he knows well - Fairmount Park, the corner, the comfort of a lover, the heart of the urban wasteland. These visits are not just nostalgic; they are often overtly political. Lewis takes up major issues that have occupied a place in our national consciousness over the years and makes his readers take a close look - at the destruction of war, the violence of the ghetto, domestic abuse, the devastation caused by AIDS, and again, at the face of Rodney King. But with each departure there is always the return to Death Row, to the Big Yard, to Lewis's bunk, from which he writes to beat "the interminable cycle of boredom and loneliness."

I wish I could escape this place.
I should have left long time ago.
There are hours of waiting.
The sleep that never comes
Flicking the channel.
Damn!
Ain't nothing on the TV but reruns.
Maybe I'll read a good book
To pass the time.
Do push-ups. Jumping jacks.
Cheat at solitaire.
The enforced stillness,
The bleeding light
Poems speak in whispers.

The effect of these poetic peregrinations, back and forth over the prison wall "I went out like this and winged back - plenty of times" - demonstrates that prison, even Death Row, is not as removed from society as some want it to be. Prison, and perhaps Death Row particularly, is intrinsically connected to our communities, our history, and our shame. By writing from prison, about prison, as well as about people, places, events in the "outside world," Lewis suggests that these two realms are only artificially and forcibly separated. In the end, the reader is forced to rethink Death Row and the lives of those who live there.

In his Introduction, Lewis writes, "I knew I was not, and will never be, sum total equalling a mere Death Row Inmate, a number corralled, stored, locked away and forgotten," and, indeed, through his writing, through his activism Lewis has ensured that this will never happen. Moreover, Lewis seeks to create a legacy for others as well. A quotation by Virginia Woolf serves as an epigraph to the poem "Sad Stories are Always True:" "Among the tortures and devastations of life is this then - our friends are not able to finish their stories." Lewis does not presume to speak for anyone else or write anyone else's story, but homage to those who may otherwise be forgotten is a thematic fixture of Leaving Death Row. Lewis eulogizes a dead aunt and speaks to a daughter he may never know; he laments a former lover, and lifts up "the madman who sings of better days." But perhaps the most memorable poems are those that capture and record the lives of those on Death Row, as seen by Lewis. Sometimes these faces are nameless, as in "Men Do Cry:"

Death row teems with sad,
broken, hungry men.
Some mornings they serve
cold coffee for breakfast.
Late at night Black radio
wails those tragic love songs.
When no one sees us
We sip hot tears.

Often Lewis likens his subjects to movie stars, historic personages, or jazz and literary greats. Leaving Death Row is speckled with references to Jimmy Baldwin, John Coltrane, Billie Holliday, James Cagney, and others. Into this index of household names, Lewis inserts Ronald O'Shea, Old Smokey, and the women of Death Row, "Crestfallen and Broken." In "Queens Rise," his tribute to the women on Death Row, Lewis writes:

You go back through the
lineage of Queens
To Sheba, Ester,
Cleopatra,
Elizabeth,
And La-ti-fah.

This is not a contrived effort to posit unknown prisoners as unsung heroes. Rather, Lewis suggests, throughout the book, these almost completely anonymous characters, who are in danger of being forgotten, impart beauty, humor, and knowledge to those who remember and know them. Leaving Death Row is Lewis's first printed collection, but he says it won't be his last. He is currently finishing work on a much anticipated book of essays. Lewis's voice is vitally needed to share the color and rhythm of life on Death Row, but he cannot serve as a spokesman; his voice is entirely his own. Above all, his work should propel others to pick up the pen and write, to record their experiences and to share them with others.

Check out the book...