Search Results for: Keith Erickson

-Keith Erickson, Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga, CA My Father John Erickson passed away on January 28th, three days before his 73rd birthday. Despite his absence, the memories of my father and childhood fishing trips, have kept my mind and heart afloat. Having spent most of my life incarcerated, I’ll be the first to admit that I’d lost my way in the world. I failed at maintaining the values that he tried so hard to instill in me, and I pushed him away at times the harder he would love me.  The last conversation we had before Cancer stole

by Keith Erickson, Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga, CA Last night I called my wife, something I do each and every night before we both turn in for the evening and we went through our extensive prayer list. Just five minutes later while checking the messages on the contact’s list of my inmate issued tablet, I was alarmed by a message left from my wife to call home again, as it was urgent.  I listened to the words of my wife as she cried, “Please sit down, Keith,” and her words pierced right through me as she read the

by Keith Erickson, Pleasant Valley State Prison, Coalinga, CA The world never looked so beautiful than it does for me today. Having spent almost forty years of my life incarcerated my perception of things around me weren’t always so glamourous. I decided to write this piece on one of my special talents, being an artist. There is more to my being skilled at this craft than simply being able to sit down and do it freely. As a kid growing up, I was fascinated by street art, graffiti and tagging. Watching the 1980’s movies like “Beat Street,” “Breaking,” and “Breaking

by Keith Erickson, Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga, CA There was this boy. He had been harmed as just a child by the very ones that were supposed to love and protect him. They had failed him in more ways than you can imagine. He was, like many of the men that now fill these prison walls of despair and disdain, broken before he ever stood a chance. If you knew his past, their past, you would see the world around you with deeper compassion than you ever thought possible. Their stories, our stories are real.  The tattooed faces,

by Keith Erickson, Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga, CA As a child, I never imagined that my favorite place in the world, my world, would be a park bench in a California State Prison. I find the most serene moments being suspended in time, right there adjacent to the inmate soccer field.  It’s a place that I have walked by thousands of times over without as much as a second glance. A place where taking a moment to just sit and relax my legs, would require me pausing for a period of time, disrupting my doing absolutely nothing at

by Keith Erickson I often think of myself as this sturdy ancient oak tree that has been tucked away in the stilled quietness of the forest. I may have many scars, yet I’ve come to truly believe that each one of them has been a part of the necessary afflictions for which I have had to overcome in order that I may have become what I am today, which is a much better man than I could have ever become without these scars. Each and every one of my scars, like that of the markings of this oak tree, is

by Keith Erickson The scars of my childhood are the very parts of me that so many men like me, incarcerated men, want to keep locked away from the rest of the world around them. The Alternatives to Violence Project Workshops bring out the courage in men that you would never expect to witness within a prison. This weekend was like a whirlwind of emotions and laughter that left many of us crying, yet with the realization that our personal afflictions are so much bigger than just ourselves—they also belong to so many others within and outside of these granite walls.

by Keith Erickson The scars of my childhood are the very parts of me that so many men like me, incarcerated men, want to keep locked away from the rest of the world around them. The Alternatives to Violence Project Workshops bring out the courage in men that you would never expect to witness within a prison. This weekend was like a whirlwind of emotions and laughter that left many of us crying, yet with the realization that our personal af ictions are so much bigger than just ourselves—they also belong to so many others within and outside of these

by Keith Erickson Not long ago I remember a day sitting in my California prison cell doing what I’d done so many countless other times through the electric fence and razored wire staring out my window. My freedom, something I hadn’t had in nearly thirty years, was left standing there in the forest just outside the Prison’s perimeter. I couldn’t reach out to clutch it in my bare hands if even my life depended on it – I was, and continue to be, serving the rest of my life in this man-built hell. They say that it’s a center for