Harley Creel
Oct 4, 2024

ON WRITING HARLEY CREEL

I had a captive audience in prison, they listened to my raps because as a captive audience, the captives were interested in what was going on from my perspective because I was not the prison, I was from somewhere else, as a teacher, I had that role within the community, as a link to the outside world.

I was part of the program when I was around, me, and my ideas all day long, as part of a community.

The stuff I write now as an amusement, the ignored is ignored, the rest has no captive audience.

I could tell the inmates that Texas rebelled from Mexico to keep their slaves, then join the Union as a slave state, just as they told me about Juneteenth, as a folk holiday in Texas, long before its notoriety.

10/5/24