When Chris Belden — author, musician, and educator — discusses his work at Garner Correctional Institution, he is quite used to being confronted with confusion and curiosity.

Why would a creative writing teacher, with a Masters in Fine Arts, choose to work in the prison volunteer program, which promised to be as underfunded as it was underappreciated — and even potentially dangerous? Uniquely, it was the very factors that kept others away that drew Belden in, week after week, to discuss with men in homogeneous beige uniforms the finer points of plot, voice, and perspective.

“Working with soup kitchens, senior citizens, I had already seen that this writing workshop was really important. I had already seen it touch people’s lives,” he told The Newtown Bee in a recent interview. “Now, I thought, who’s the group that needs it the most? The most hopeless people. And I really thought prison was the ultimate setting.”

Writing may not be a straightforward cure for that hopelessness, but Belden’s long career of service taught him that it’s certainly a deeply potent therapeutic medicine.

“It’s a healing process,” he explains, “I’d have people come to me and say, ‘I’ve never considered that before,’ or, ‘I haven’t thought about that for years,’” he said.

Belden’s experiences as an educator are also substantiated by a large volume of psychological literature which suggests that revisiting difficult or even traumatic experiences through the lens of creative writing reliably and repeatedly results in significant physical and mental health benefits. The precise mechanism by which this result is produced is still ultimately mysterious, but for Belden, it is more than enough to simply see the process in action.

It is understandable that starting a writing workshop from scratch in an environment like the correctional facility just south of the geographic center of Newtown was no trivial task. A great deal of convincing was required in order for the program to be approved in the first place.

“They wanted me to run the prison newspaper at first,” Belden said with a smile, “and I agreed, on the condition that they’d let me do the workshop, too.”

It was in this way that over time, he became a fixture in the prison library, which for a few hours a week would be converted into half-newsroom / half-seminar.

With the help of the deeply committed prison librarian, the support of the warden — who became convinced over time of the program’s value — and the interest of his tight-knit group of regular students, Belden was able to create a kind of oasis of creativity and mental freedom in the desert of boredom that is life under maximum security.

“Over time,” he said, “the paper started to run itself, and we spent more and more time discussing writing, and sharing our work together.”

The Next Chapter

It was this work, accumulating steadily, that formed the basis for the next chapter of Belden’s story. As this collection of written work grew in both volume and quality, he began to recognize the opportunity presented by sharing and amplifying the voices of his students.

“At first we would do readings, where people could come to the class, and hear our work,” he recalls.

These gatherings would have an audience of a few curious souls, but even then he could see the positive impact that sharing the work had on his students.

“So, I thought, what else could we do? And I’d made small publications before like this, for the senior citizens,” he recalled. “They get so proud having an official book.”

And thus, private circulation began of Garner’s own self-produced literary magazine, Sentences. Nine issues were printed before the program was halted, like almost every other type of interpersonal interactions, by the COVID-19 epidemic.

Unfortunately, apart from a few of Belden’s curious friends, the circulation of the magazine did not reach beyond the walls of Garner.

“I didn’t want to charge for it,” he explains, “I wanted there to be as little money involved as possible.”

During the pandemic, however, Belden found himself with time on his hands and a great deal of what he described as profound written material. With samples in hand, he approached Woodhall Press, and the collected works titled Closer to Freedom: Poetry and Prose from Maximum Security was born.

This master anthology, edited by Belden, will finally share with the world some of the most resonant and impactful work produced by his students at Garner.

Upon reviewing Belden’s compilation, bestselling author Wally Lamb reacted by saying, “The incarcerated writers whose work is collected in Closer To Freedom speak in the vernacular of authenticity, rough starts, and rehabilitation. This book is a clarion call reminding us of the humanity of our imprisoned brothers and sisters.”

In his poem “My New Haven Character,” Isschar M. Howard writes:

I’m a drug addict, an alcoholic, exhausted but still clawing

toward dreams of becoming

meaningful and redeemable for what truly matters,

‘cause a man’s bad decision doesn’t define his character.

Closer to Freedom shows Howard and his fellow writers putting aside the violence, the drugs, the “I” of invulnerability, in favor of using language to make sense of their lives.

Expansive Imagination

Influenced by everyone from Plutarch to Tupac, William Carlos Williams to will.i.am — not to mention quotidian life on the inside — the more than 60 writers represented explore love and family, violence and addiction, anger and regret, justice and injustice, hope and redemption.

In the process, they discover something honest and revelatory.

In the words of contributor Patrick Walsh: “If only you could see me, if only you had seen me. You’d see fresh buds forming at my fingertips, and my seeds, like tears, falling to the ground.”

Caits Meissner, director of PEN America’s Prison and Justice Writing program, says, “The writings in Closer to Freedom span the spectrum of expression. Here is imagination at its most expansive.”

It is that imagination, coupled with the courage to express their deepest, most vulnerable feelings, that brings these incarcerated writers that much closer to freedom.

In addition to his newest project, Belden is the author of the novels Carry-on and Shriver (the latter was recently made into the film A Little White Lie), as well as the story collection The Floating Lady of Lake Tawaba. His essay “Inside Words: How to Teach Writing in Prison” was awarded the 2013 Bechtel Prize by guest judge Susan Orlean.

Closer to Freedom will be available on October 2, with all proceeds generated going to Community Partners in Action (CPA).

According to its founders, Community Partners in Action supports the transition from life in incarceration to life in the community. Its model blends direct services, community action, and restorative justice advocacy offering programs providing essential services including transitional housing, reentry and resettlement support, workforce development and coaching, as well as partnerships with mental health and addiction services.

CPA is supported by volunteers including community leaders in Greater Hartford, Greater Waterbury, and other cities and towns in Connecticut bringing together nonprofits, city departments, state agencies, and others to ensure all the needs of people in the nonprofit agency’s care are met.

Readers interested in the work of Belden and his students are invited to attend a free public reading on Saturday, September 30, at C.H. Booth Library, 25 Main Street, from 2 to 3:30 pm. He will be joined by former Garner Librarian Mark Aldrich and some of the book’s contributors, who have since been released.

Registration is requested for those planning to attend in person and required for those who’d like to attend via Zoom. Visit chboothlibrary.org for details and registration.

For more details about Belden, visit chrisbelden.com.

Owen Tanzer is a reporter and editorial assistant for The Newtown Bee.