A Gathering + Open Mic
This event was held on Tuesday, January 7th, at 7:00pm, at Moon Palace Books. We gathered in the back room, sat at tables together, and talked. Part of our conversation included the purpose of Better Things, which is not always clear from the flyers we put out: we provide a space to welcome, connect, and provide spiritual and artistic nourishment for anyone in the local literary and arts community, including but not limited to formerly incarcerated people. One focus of Better Things is specifically to make connections between people who have been directly impacted by the criminal legal system and those who have not (we are all at least indirectly impacted).
The night was refreshing and powerful—I’m always surprised by how well these smaller groups go. We have never yet had exactly the same set of attendees (which makes sense statistically), and every combination has turned out great.
I chose two questions from a list I came across recently: Check-ins for Connection & Care, which I found through Against Punishment, a resource anchored in the principle that punishment actually undermines safety. (This is part of the excellent Interrupting Criminalization 2024 Curriculum, a free resource for self-directed independent study.)
The questions we answered:
- What are you trying to remember/hold onto during challenging times?
- What do you need right now?
Answers were thoughtful and led naturally into further discussions; among other things, we talked about breath and community, connection and dependence, and the toxic indoctrination around “self-sufficiency” that is so hard to resist.
We then took turns reading poems. The microphones were on and the stage was available—one of Better Things’ driving motivations is to provide opportunities to practice various aspects of performance in a welcoming, comfortable space (as comfortable as performing can ever be, anyway 😉)—but we chose to use unamplified voices. We also talked about various other open mics available in the Twin Cities.
This gathering, and the open mic afterward, were hosted by Davi Gray and Louise Waakaa’igan.
Better Things is a series of events sponsored by the ReEntry Lab, in partnership with the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop (MPWW), the Longfellow Community Council, and Moon Palace Books, with funding from the City of Minneapolis‘s Partnership Engagement Fund.
The ReEntry Lab is an organization working to connect writers and other artists leaving incarceration to a community that’s ready to receive them. You can learn more about its mission, volunteer to help, and sign up for the newsletter at reentrylab.org.