Elegy as a Writing Instructor in State Prison

2022 Chapbook Prize Finalist

I want to know the god these men know,

pounded to life on the chapel piano.

I want to disguise myself in desert air

and follow the hymn between each keyhole.

There’s a rebirth I’m missing as I exit

the guard kiosk & accelerate. I want to know

yearnings on the yards too violent to walk,

the single ember in a cell of one

who still believes in the god I want to know.

Johnny Kovatch

Johnny Kovach (He/Him) is the founder of Unlock the Arts, a nonprofit based in Portland, Oregon, that specializes in creative expression as a catalyst for personal transformation. He is a recipient of an Established Artist Fellowship in poetry awarded by the California Arts Council. He previously taught expressive writing within six California state prisons.

His poetry has appeared in Barrow Street, Sou’wester, SOLO, The Los Angeles Review, Cholla Needles, Oakland Renaissance, and Why to These Rocks, an anthology celebrating fifty years of the Community of Writers. A commissioned writing lesson appears in PEN America’s: The Sentences That Create Us. Work is forthcoming in The Atticus Review. His novel, 59 Hours, was published by Simon & Schuster.

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