Poetry Offers Growth and Collaboration at the NDSP

Tomanek reads his students' poetry during class and gives feedback afterward.

There is a wide range of art and humanities programs offered throughout the Bismarck-Mandan community. Less, however, offered to residents at the North Dakota State Penitentiary. Poetry at the Penn has been a part of bridging that gap, offering residents a chance to develop a skill that can be used in and out of the facility. 

Poetry at the Penn is a program created by Michael Tomanek, an Associate Professor of English, who teaches poetry at Bismarck State College. It was started in 2018 and offers a weekly, once a night poetry class for the residents of the NDSP. 

There were a few reasons for the creation of this program. Tomanek became the director from Bringing Humanities to Life in 2017, which is a program funded by the National Endowment of the Humanities. The NEH is a grant-funded endowment, and through this endowment, Bringing Humanities to Life was able to fund different humanities programs. Under the original application for the NEH and as the director, Tomanek was encouraged to start his own project in the Bismarck-Mandan community.  

“During that first year as the director, I kind of did some research and tried to figure out what I could do that would allow me to work in my field, which was English,” Tomanek said. “Bring that to a group in the community, to not only enrich their lives, but use the humanities to develop them and help them grow.”

Tomanek used this opportunity to connect with the residents at the penitentiary, which is an interest he had expressed before and decided to act on it.  

Another reason, and a more personal reason for this program, was that Tomanek wanted to engage a population that were otherwise separated from society and bring them something that could enrich their lives. Tomanek took a subject he is passionate about to offer the residents something for their own benefit and is completely voluntary from them to participate.

“We as a culture, as a country, like to send people to prison, but we don’t necessarily offer them the skills and tools while they are there so when they get out, they are able to not return [to society],” Tomenek said. 

Since its inception, the program has undergone a few changes as Tomanek has adjusted to better fit the needs of the residents. 

“They don’t have access to printers, they don’t have access to computers, or not in the same way, " Tomanek said. “To be able to run it like my class on campus is just not possible, at least structurally.”

The class structure was planned for each week to build off each other. One week there would be a lesson and then the next week the residents brought back the work they did from that previous lesson. This did not work as planned as attendees varied week by week for a multitude of reasons. Residents could get released, they could get transferred, or maybe their recreational time had changed. To combat this, Tomanek created stand alone lessons for each week, which could be a mix of writing and reading activities. This allowed anyone new coming into the program to follow along without needing previous information. 

This program has given an opportunity for crossover between the residents and the poetry class at BSC. This semester, Tomanek has been discussing what makes good and bad poems with his students on campus. The students were given the assignment of writing a bad love poem and a good love poem. The students' poems were distributed to the residents anonymously, and the residents were tasked with deciding which was a bad or good poem along with giving feedback as to how the students could improve their writing.  

This program has the potential for growth because of changes with the grant and the benefits of collaboration. 

“I see no reason to stop doing it, so I just continue to do it as part of my commitment to humanities and to bring humanities to life,” Tomanek said.