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Inspiring creativity and encouraging personal and social change through the arts

The Prison Arts Foundation is as important as it is unique. Thanks to our pioneering work with people with convictions lives are being transformed and patterns of behaviour changed for good.

Our team of experienced professional artists working across the criminal justice system in Northern Ireland are offering people with convictions a life-line, helping to improve their creative and communications skills, which is key to personal and social development, building self-confidence and unlocking people’s potential.

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Writing (Poetry)

Single Chance

I done the crime

I’m paying the time

I’ve been heavily prosecuted

But unfairly persecuted

 

I attempt to reintegrate

In order to rehabilitate

Nepotism stops me

Yet murderers run free

 

I’m frozen in place

Officers lie to my face

Blow smoke up my arse

A ridiculous farce

 

If I ask the question

Why I can’t move on

I’m told to have patience,

More lies, and a con

 

They hope I mess up

So they have an excuse

But what they’re doing is torture,

Mental abuse

 

We’re told we reap

What we sow

But that’s not true,

No, no, no

 

They have their favourites

Who strut all smug

Whilst I’m inferior,

A pushover and mug

 

All I’m asking for

Is a single chance

But they’re too entrenched

In their hard-line stance

 

So whilst Tom, Dick and Harry

All move on and move out

For Muggins here, nothing but ambiguity,

Uncertainty and doubt.

HMP Magilligan

2nd Prize Poetry Intermediate, Listowel Writing in Prison Awards, 2018

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