美国国家公共电台 NPR--Incarcerated teens find escape in music and poems composed with artists

Incarcerated¹ teens find escape in music and poems composed with artists

Transcript²

Jaylene is about to turn 16. But it's no Sweet Sixteen. She's among the tens of thousands of kids who wake up each morning incarcerated across the United States.

One thing's clear for Jaylene: she wants to break a cycle that she says also landed her uncles and her physically-abusive, alcoholic³ father in jail. She's due to get out in September after being booked for a drug-fueled, high-speed car chase and two hit-and-runs. It was her first time behind the wheel, she says.

Music, she says, gives her hope for a better life. "At the time of my arrest, I was very heavy on percs [percocet] and fentanyl. And my withdrawals⁴ would make me become a person that I'm not, make the evil come out of me," Jaylene tells NPR's Morning Edition host Michel Martin. "Music is my escape, you know? That's my therapy right there."

She performed spoken word as part of a group of 12 kids at the Northern Virginia Juvenile⁵ Detention⁶ Center for a recent three-day workshop to write poems, compose melodies and play with six musicians from the Sound Impact collective. A larger group of 30 teens listened to concerts on the first day. NPR is only using their first names for privacy and security reasons.

"The system looks at us as animals," Jaylene says. "But I appreciate people taking the time to come in and work with us because they know we got potential. At the end of the day, we're still kids, you know, and a kid is going to be a kid forever, no matter what."

Jaylene, who says she loves rap and cites J. Cole, Nas and Lil Baby as inspirations, read the following original text: "Fruit of my labor⁷, about to go and chase it. / In this life there's no escaping / about to take it slow and patient. / There's no need to go and waste it. / It's basic, just face it. / There's no escaping the matrix."

Joint⁸ performances saw the young detainees read spoken word and poetry or play simple melodies accompanied by the musicians on a makeshift stage of artificial turf. Sometimes, the musicians would stand or crouch⁹ near the kids wherever they sit or lay on cushions, surrounded by potted plants.

Large posters of colorful, bucolic¹⁰ scenes - bursting with waterfalls and blooming rhododendrons - hung around the gym with plastic tile flooring. In a final performance, the musicians — a violist, cellist¹¹, flutist, trumpeter and two violinists — performed "Turn-Around." Composer James M. Stephenson stitched together the piece based on short melodies the youths wrote on the first day of the residency.

"Music makes you okay to feel whatever way you're feeling," says Keisha Johnstone, a member of Sound Impact's board who advocates for at-risk youth. She says interacting with the musicians and participating in the creating process helps these kids build self-confidence and self-worth to work through and overcome their past missteps and trauma¹².

"When they wrote that song and our musicians came behind them and started playing, they were like, I can write, I can produce," Johnstone adds. "All you got to do is start planting the seed... and eventually they start to see."

Another incarcerated young person, Aunner, shares a poem that begins with: "Awake, awake / cast away the darkness / which fills deep within / you are light, you shine the void."

He says his poem is about finding light during a "very dark" time after he used drugs and got kicked out of his home by his mother. "As a young man, society tells you don't cry and stuff like that. But it's okay to let those emotions go. It's better to let it out."

Aunner's grandfather was a fiddler, a connection to music that has endured. "When the song is right, you get goosebumps and all that stuff is very beautiful, very beautiful music," he says.

Now, Aunner says he's aiming to share his experiences with drug use because "I don't want nobody to go through what I had to go through... it's just not worth it."

Jail is a hard place to grow up. Federal data estimates the number of jailed young people at around 25,000, while the American Civil Liberties Union says there could be as many as 60,000.

"I just want to enjoy being a kid," Jaylene says. "Yeah, we're locked up. But also we're building family, we're building strength and we're building a child in here as well."

1 incarcerated   

钳闭的

参考例句：

• They were incarcerated for the duration of the war. 战争期间，他们被关在狱中。 来自辞典例句
• I don't want to worry them by being incarcerated. 我不想让他们知道我被拘禁的事情。 来自电影对白

2 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

3 alcoholic   

adj.（含）酒精的，由酒精引起的；n.酗酒者

参考例句：

• The alcoholic strength of brandy far exceeds that of wine.白兰地的酒精浓度远远超过葡萄酒。
• Alcoholic drinks act as a poison to a child.酒精饮料对小孩犹如毒药。

4 withdrawals   

n.收回，取回，撤回( withdrawal的名词复数 )；撤退，撤走；收回[取回，撤回，撤退，撤走]的实例；推出（组织），提走（存款），戒除毒瘾，对说过的话收回，孤僻

参考例句：

• He has made several withdrawals from his bank account. 他从银行账户上提了几次款。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• It is not the bank's policy to deduct interest on withdrawals. 提款需扣除利息这并非是本银行的政策。 来自辞典例句

5 juvenile   

n.青少年，少年读物；adj.青少年的，幼稚的

参考例句：

• For a grown man he acted in a very juvenile manner.身为成年人，他的行为举止显得十分幼稚。
• Juvenile crime is increasing at a terrifying rate.青少年犯罪正在以惊人的速度增长。

6 detention   

n.滞留，停留；拘留，扣留；(教育)留下

参考例句：

• He was kept in detention by the police.他被警察扣留了。
• He was in detention in connection with the bribery affair.他因与贿赂事件有牵连而被拘留了。

7 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

8 joint   

adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合

参考例句：

• I had a bad fall,which put my shoulder out of joint.我重重地摔了一跤，肩膀脫臼了。
• We wrote a letter in joint names.我们联名写了封信。

9 crouch   

v.蹲伏，蜷缩，低头弯腰；n.蹲伏

参考例句：

• I crouched on the ground.我蹲在地上。
• He crouched down beside him.他在他的旁边蹲下来。

10 bucolic   

adj.乡村的；牧羊的

参考例句：

• It is a bucolic refuge in the midst of a great bustling city.它是处在繁华的大城市之中的世外桃源。
• She turns into a sweet country girl surrounded by family,chickens and a bucolic landscape.她变成了被家人、鸡与乡村景象所围绕的甜美乡村姑娘。

11 cellist   

n.大提琴手

参考例句：

• The cellist's bowing was very sensitive . 那位大提琴手的弓法十分细腻。 来自辞典例句
• World-renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma founded The Silk Road Project in 1998. 世界闻名的大提琴家马友友于1998年创建了丝路工程。 来自互联网

12 trauma   

n.外伤，精神创伤

参考例句：

• Counselling is helping him work through this trauma.心理辅导正帮助他面对痛苦。
• The phobia may have its root in a childhood trauma.恐惧症可能源于童年时期的创伤。