Engaging with themes of prison abolition, justice, and care, this poem departs from a biographical story: the imprisonment of my father. The work was activated through an event – a poetry reading and participatory grief ritual, in which notes of loss and sorrow were submerged in water.
To All the Caged Creatures of this World confronts a legacy of violence, tracing how trauma is carried across generations, and how inequality, poverty, and abuse are intensified through carceral systems. In the wake of escalating immigration raids in the United States and the arrest of pro-Palestine activists globally, the poem calls for renewed solidarity across borders and prison walls, standing with detained people everywhere.
Presented by the artist-run publishing platform, bookshop, and exhibition space Page Not Found in The Hague, as part of their ongoing series Open Letters, in which curated messages of urgency and vulnerability by artists and writers are displayed in the front window of the venue for one month.
Camille Sapara Barton, author of Tending Grief, was invited as a guest speaker for the finissage, delivering a talk that reflected on grief as a communal, embodied process.
Photography: Fabio Meinardi. Courtesy of Page Not Found.