ID: Book with bright orange background and a white dandelion with green stem in the foreground. The title reads “THAT’S A PRETTY THING TO CALL IT.” The very bottom of the book cover is white with orange letters reading: “Prose and Poetry by Artists Teaching in Carceral Institutions. Leigh Sugar, Editor”
That’s a Pretty Thing to Call It
AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE
New Village Press, 2023 | For batch orders/desk copies, contact lynne@newvillagepress.net.
Poetry and prose by artists, writers, and activists who’ve taught workshops in U.S. criminal legal institutions, including acclaimed writers Ellen Bass, Joshua Bennett, Jill McDounough, E. Ethelbert Miller, Idra Novey, Joy Priest, Paisley Rekdal, Christopher Soto, and Michael Torres; the late arts in corrections pioneers Buzz Alexander and Judith Tannenbaum; and Guggenheim Award-winning choreographer Pat Graney. These educators demonstrate a diverse range of experiences. Among the questions they ask: Does our work support the continuation or deconstruction of a mass incarcerating society? What led me to teach in prison? How do I resist the “savior” or “helper” narrative? A book for anyone seeking to understand the prison industrial complex from a human perspective.
All author royalties from this book will be donated to Dances for Solidarity, a project that brings arts opportunities to people incarcerated in solitary confinement.
What folks are saying…
"That’s a Pretty Thing shows us that it is possible to seek beauty from hell; that it is possible to cultivate sweetness and honesty in the face of brutality and betrayal. We learn that buried deep in the American carceral system are people. People who love and hurt and think and grow. People who have something to say if only we would listen.”
—Cynthia W. Roseberry, Acting Director, ACLU Justice Division; project manager of President Obama’s Clemency Initiative; founding board member of Georgia Innocence Project.
"Sugar and the collected writers contend with the emotional upheavals and moral hazards of teaching in prisons. Here, in knife-edged detail, is prison’s mundane hell: the “ceremonies” of entry and exit, the arbitrary rules, the pointless cruelties. Here, too, are careful portraits of incarcerated students and writers, who challenge their would-be teachers and write with an urgency that most of us will never possess.”
—Marshall Thomas, attorney, public defender, writer
"This book has translated the ancient and forgotten language of the dead into the organic syllable of the living. As the Prince in Hamlet identifies “the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns,” the prose and poetry warriors in That's a Pretty Thing to Call It go where the dead white poets feared to tread – beyond the silk veil that separates the living from the civilly dead.”
—Michael Rhynes, author of Guerrillas in the Mist, Pushcart Prize nominee, poet, playwright, and solo performance artist.
"Brilliantly illuminates truths about incarceration ... Prisons are built to separate the incarcerated from the rest of the community, to silence their voices ... Works like That’s a Pretty Thing to Call It expose the cruelty and absurdity of that intention."
—Arts Fuse
Reviews
New review in The Good Life Review!
ArtFuse wrote an astute and generous review of That’s a Pretty Thing to Call It!
Listen to an episode of On the Margin where writer, poet, activist, and anthology contributor E. Ethelbert Miller interviews Leigh about the book!
Interview with Leigh about That’s a Pretty Thing to Call It on Pigeon Pages!