New Episodes Coming Soon!

➞ In the first episode of our show, we are stepping out with the remarkable and singular Dasha Kelly Hamilton. Dasha wields words to make magic happen, whether on stage herself, in writing sessions like Prose and Cons, or while chatting with co-host and historian Adam Carr. We’ll drop into one of her workshops at Racine Correctional Institute to hear how power can be rooted in humanity and expressed through poetry. Dasha says that most of the people who meet her didn’t know what they were getting into, so get ready. This is going to be good!

➞ We all have a story worth sharing. In the second episode, we visit with some of the key players behind UW-Madison’s first credit-bearing course inside any state prison since 1917. We will learn what makes Odyssey Beyond Bars storytelling workshops so meaningful for the participants, and meet Mark Espanol, who shared his story at the English 101 graduation inside Oak Hill Correctional Facility.

➞ People inside U.S. prisons have been running their own newsrooms since 1800. Founded in 1887, the Prison Mirror is often considered the best prison newspaper in the United States. In the 1980s, Robert Taliaferro was a writer and editor for The Mirror, as it was called in those days. In this episode of Human Powered, we talk with Robert and Shannon Ross, a writer who started The Community in 2014 when he was in prison. The newsletter, which he still edits today, reaches half of Wisconsin’s prison population. With hosts Adam Carr and Dasha Kelly Hamilton, Robert and Shannon consider how important it is to center human stories of people who are incarcerated, and for all of us to hear about prisons from those who have an inside perspective.