The Wynne Home has been very active this month, hosting many wonderful artists and speakers from the community to raise cultural awareness and highlight some of the wonderful talent we have in town. And this week, the Wynne Home featured Grady Hillman and his 1984 award-winning film “Lions, Parakeets, and Other Prisoners,” depicting the complexities of incarceration through poetry.
Many of our city’s key figures were in attendance; Sarah Faulkner, the Cultural Services Director for the City of Huntsville; Tammy Gann, the Economic Director, City Manager Aron Kulhavy, Dr. Ralph and Mrs. Linda Pease; Dr. Carolina Crimm; Kristie Stevens, a writer for the Huntsville Item; and Cheryl Spencer and Dr. Joe Kirkland.
Professor Mike Yawn started off the night with an astounding anecdote, recounting one of his only memories as a sixth-grader, a bomb threat at his school. The students were moved to a safe location, where a poet was brought in to entertain the 1,600 restless, rowdy, and unruly children during the delay. That poet, hired at the time by Linda Pease, was in fact Grady Hillman! Funnily enough, Hillman could not only recall that day, but he wrote a poem about the entire endeavor– and he happened to have that poem with him! He asked Yawn to recite this poem, and the two of them relived that day more than 40 years ago, adding in commentary as appropriate. As an audience member, I felt very lucky to have witnessed such a moment.
Hillman introduced the critically-acclaimed docu-drama’s background, of course, highlighting the city of Huntsville. The film depicts the Walls, Wynne, and Eastham Units, centered around a poetry class Hillman lead in our local prisons.
Consisting pieces of poetry written and reenacted by Hillman’s students, the film captured the emotions of an incarcerated person’s experience, transcending the class meetings altogether. The title of the film is even a reference to two of poems read during the film in which two animals, lions and parakeets, are assigned to their respective cages. I must admit, my favorite detail within the film was its rhythm, which made both the dialogue and the poetry all the more profound. One of the most special parts of the night was when the credits started rolling, with the audience members seeing the names of longtime friends in the community.
Hillman concluded the night with an informational on his newest book, “Arts in Corrections: Thirty Years of Annotated Publications,” an annotation on the arts and education programs in the prison system, which is on sale at the Wynne Home.
Interestingly, in 2012, Hillman suffered a stroke that left him unable to write, read, and speak. After doing intensive therapies to regain those abilities, he has, he noted, become an editor of his own work. Going over his life’s activities and curating them, and the presentation of “Lions, Parakeets, and Other Prisoners” is part of that process. We were fortunate to be a part of it.
After the event, Hillman was generous enough to sign books. When I went to get my book signed, we had the opportunity to speak about the culture of each individual prison. Having visited 16 prisons from 1981-1984 alone, Hillman noted that his experiences were each unique to the prison. He did note, since he began the writing courses in Huntsville, that within the first year working there he knew most of the problems within the prison, the second year he knew how to solve the problems, and within the third year the problems changed, and he couldn’t even recall the initial problems.
It was truly a pleasure to get a glimpse into the immense experience and talent of Grady Hillman. We were further reminded of just how rich and deep the culture of Huntsville possesses, appreciating just how special of a time we all shared reflecting on it.
Center for Law, Engagement, and Politics 