Reginald Dwayne Betts

The news would pour out of various devices, interrupted by attempts to sell products to the unseen.

I would call my friends on other devices.

They would be more or less mad for similar reasons.

Slowly I would get to pen and paper, make my poems for others unseen and unborn.

But this she comes across so clearly.

This feels so familiar with the line.

They you know, I would call my friends and other devices.

They would be more or less mad for similar reasons.

I think also in the essay "Freedom Dreams," I ask, why do we read? And I talk about book banning and the denial of literacy and what happens when you have an under-read and under-educated populace.

Why do we read? What is it for? And I let that question take us to an extraordinary project that we have supported through the Mellon Foundation called Freedom Reads, where the poet, lawyer, amazing person, Dwayne Betts- has put a 500-book library in every single prison in this country.

In the essay Notes on the Nation, I am asking, you know, starting with talking about September 6th and asking, what does it mean to strive for Black freedom in a country that still has not fully accepted that premise? How do we fight for it? How do we work for it? So those are some of the questions that are real ones that I hope that readers will help us answer.

If you're just tuning in, this is Under the Radar with Callie Crossley.

I promised you that this is going to be an amazing hour.

And I do not believe that Reginald Dwayne Betts is going to disappoint.

He never does.

I've known this brother for years now.

Uh, it shares his incredible journey from jail to Yale.

Uh, and, uh, why he believes that having libraries inside prisons is not just necessary, but in fact is a form of freedom.

Before I jump straightway into the dialogue with Reginald Dwayne Betts, here is the trailer for March 4th.

I got to tell y'all, the first time I came to prison, nobody clapped for me.

They can also be a lifeline.

They can be a way to transport yourself, to escape your current situation, and today's guest, the poet Reginald Dwayne Betts, I know feels much the same way about reading.

Reginald is a beautiful writer, but he's also the driving force behind Freedom Reads, a unique organization that brings beautiful handcrafted bookcases into prisons and, quote, "transforms cell blocks into freedom libraries," end quote.

Reginald took his own experience of incarceration, and he is trying to change the circumstances of others still inside.

He's a distinguished lawyer.

He's a MacArthur Genius Grant recipient.

But to me, above all else, Reginald Dwayne Betts is a human who loves books.

And so in a time where people are reading fewer books than ever, we're gonna talk about the power and the necessity of reading and of beauty.

We love poetry

... was called Doggerel by Reginald Dwayne Betts.

Mm-hmm.

That's a great title.