If My Words Had Wings

Tyrell (Ty) Forrester made the wrong choice when he became involved in an armed robbery and his decision cost him 18 months in a young offenders’ prison. With only three weeks of his sentence left to serve he needs to avoid trouble of any sort. In short, he needs to be simply what the system has labelled him: Prison number 88582LD.  However, his internal monologue in the opening pages makes it abundantly clear how hard that is to achieve. Jawondo educates the reader into the twisted etiquette of prison life-the strict hierarchy of inmates, the rules, spoken and unspoken, which have nothing to do with the official regime and the ceaseless, brutal jockeying for position-or for invisibility. Add despair, violence, mental illness and self-harm to the mix and the longevity of sentence becomes a secondary consideration.

This malevolent tapestry is mirrored in the treatment meted out to young black men from the lowest echelons of society, condemned to poor housing and job opportunities and damaging stereotypes.  The appalling joint enterprise conviction meted out to Dadir, Tyrell’s new-found friend, means that he will serve 21 years for murder when he merely nodded in recognition to someone he knew, who then went on to murder another boy. This sledgehammer approach to controlling gang violence pays no heed to the innocents caught up in its machinations and ignores the spiralling deprivations and prejudices which offer precious few rays of hope or opportunities for progress in abandoned black communities.

Then amidst all the dense negativity and the corrosive boredom in the prison comes the opportunity to attend a poetry workshop run by a black poet. An interest in lyrics and a desire to keep out of the way of trouble send Ty along and it’s there that his journey to creative self-expression begins.  His teacher Marlon recognises his talent before Ty ever does and Ty revels in being praised and supported in something he comes to believe in. When he is released he finds that words are his weapons and his solace and a brief spell back in jail after a spoken word protest gathering does nothing to deter him from continuing to write and perform his work.

Jawando offers readers an insight into the world of black teenage male culture and society’s response to it. The authentic use of language and the explanation of the way that the legal system is loaded against this coterie makes the book an immersive and powerful experience. It is especially telling that the reader becomes invested in Ty –this reader certainly wanted to know what he went on to become. He had a supportive family- but what of those who don’t?