Learning Instructions For Everyone
…in prison & out
In this debut collection, Phillip Vance Smith II shows us the profound consequences of a life-without-parole sentence. With quiet power, his poems examine trauma and inhumane treatment yet unearth hope for himself and for us all.
Praise for “LIFE”
“Prison walls isolate citizens from the life inside, so we are spared thinking about the daily realities facing the incarcerated. Smith’s marvelous poems provide rich and emotion-triggering insights about this hidden world, showing how humanity and inhumanity exist side by side in the society of captives. We are given a unique and often disturbing education about an institution – the prison – that the United States employs more than any other advanced Western society.”
– Francis T. Cullen, Past President, American Society of Criminology; 2022 Stockholm Prize in Criminology; Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus, University of Cincinnati
“No words can do justice to the experience of incarceration – particularly life and death sentences – yet somehow, Smith’s raw, devastating dispatches from one of the darkest corners of human existence manage to convey messages of hope for us all, in prison and out.”
– Shadd Maruna, President, American Society of Criminology;Professor of Criminology, Queen’s University Belfast
“LIFE is a critically important window into the realities of incarcerated life, realities I’ve seen close-up in my past work as a correctional officer and today, as an ethnographic researcher. Smith’s poems are altogether authentic, concerning, reflective, empowering, hideous, and beautiful. A deeply moving book.”
– TaLisa J. Carter, Assistant Professor, Department of Justice, Law & Criminology, American University
“Smith’s poems remind us that in this journey of life, we all change. So, too, does LIFE change the reader by its end. Even for a fellow prisoner such as me, it made new and painfully real what I thought was familiar territory.”
– George T. Wilkerson, Four-time PEN award-winner incarcerated on Death Row; Author of Interface
“Smith’s compelling collection reminds us that there is crime and there is punishment, and more than we want to know, there is the crime of punishment that has metastasized into our bloated prison system. We are honored to add this book to the BleakHouse collection.”
– Robert Johnson, Founding Editor & Publisher, BleakHouse Publishing; Professor, Department of Justice, Law and Criminology, American University