Off the Cuffs Poetry by and about the Police

by Sheeler, Jackie; Holman, Bob

• ISBN13: 9781887128810
• ISBN10: 1887128816
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-03-01
• Publisher: Soft Skull

Summary

The first collection of poetry that allows us to see police officers not just as brutalizers or heroes but as complicated human beings in a position that is sometimes terrifying, sometimes rewarding and often questionable.

On a daily basis police save lives, take lives, and risk their own lives. Existing books on police and policing give us a single point-of-view, a black and white story that portrays cops as either saints or villains. This exploration of the dynamic point of understanding makes Off The Cuffs unique. Divided into four sections--Eyewitnesses, Insiders, Victims & Perpetrators, and Dreamers--Off The Cuffs gives us a diversity of voices, telling stories of fear, apprehension, love, brutality, death, sorrow, joy, hope and resolve.

Out of this multiplicity of voices: convicts, police, bike messengers and established poets such as Charles Simic, Martin Espada, Kevin Young and Colette Inez - emerges a dialogue showing us the infinite shades of blue that surround the profession and the profession's relationship to the society they are sworn to protect. Off The Cuffs adds an important and unheard piece to this body of work: the usually disparate voices of cops, prisoners and everyone in between engaging with one another within the pages of one book.

Author Biography

Jackie Sheeler is a lifelong New Yorker and a lifelong juggler: poet, performance artist, songwriter, wordrocker, publisher, blogger, producer and webmaster. Her work has been widely anthologized in New York Quarterly, Rattapallax, Painted Bride Quarterly, Phoebe, Slant, and many other journals. She has taught workshops at The Writer's Voice, as well as at drug rehabs and prisons (which led to her holding for a time the title "Poet Laureate of Riker's Island").

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. ix
Eyewitnesses	p. 1
Introduction	p. 3
What the Policeman Told Me	p. 5
Eyes	p. 9
Hotel, New York City	p. 10
The Arrest	p. 11
Untitled	p. 12
Objet D'Art	p. 15
Coffee Break	p. 16
Criminal Court	p. 17
Fury Selection	p. 18
Pantoum	p. 19
Target Practice	p. 20
On Some Streets	p. 21
Two Crimes	p. 22
Summer Solstice, New York City	p. 23
Graveyard Shift	p. 25
Logic of Fate	p. 26
Crayola Wars	p. 27
You And Me, Charlie (Excerpt)	p. 28
(WTO Freewrite)	p. 29
Dalhousie	p. 32
Rumours of Police	p. 33
Hiding Place	p. 35
Found Poem	p. 36
Charles F. Kelley	p. 37
Father: A Life in Blue Counts	p. 38
My Brother, A Cop	p. 40
Fall of Ninety	p. 41
In Uniform	p. 42
On My Way to the Poetry Slam	p. 43
Corner	p. 46
The Spectacle	p. 48
5XPlus	p. 50
The Great Flower Bust	p. 52
Untitled	p. 53
Tomkins Square Park, May 1, 1990	p. 54
Police Blotter	p. 56
Deer Prudence	p. 58
Sweet Streams in Spanish Harlem	p. 61
Halloween	p. 62
If Looks Could	p. 65
Confluence Becomes Me	p. 66
Victims & Perpetrators	p. 69
Introduction	p. 71
Victims	p. 73
Night Shift on the Poisonous World	p. 75
Rookie	p. 77
The Cop Who Rides Alone	p. 78
Inside	p. 80
Willieworld (Excerpt)	p. 82
Off Like a Glove	p. 83
Body in New Fersey Not Missing Woman's	p. 86
Weeping Walls	p. 87
Married to a Cop	p. 89
On the Beat	p. 90
Mining For Eureka	p. 91
Lingo	p. 93
The Great Doubters of History	p. 94
The Pulse of the City	p. 96
Skin Gamezz (Po-Po Bluezz)	p. 100
LC	p. 101
Road Test	p. 103
Above a Darkened Bed	p. 104
Baby J	p. 105
Pigasus	p. 107
Letter My Dad Never Gave Me	p. 108
First Day in El Barrio	p. 111
The Wall	p. 113
Playing Guns in West Duluth	p. 115
Walking With Wild Horses	p. 116
Culture	p. 121
Falling Body	p. 124
Untitled #3	p. 125
The Town Where He Lived	p. 127
Ex-Cop Slain in Motel	p. 129
NYPD Blues	p. 130
Retiring	p. 131
Ride-Along	p. 134
On His Last Tour	p. 136
Perpetrators	p. 139
All 4-1	p. 141
A Pantoum for Sergeant Koon	p. 144
South Central Cheap Thrills	p. 146
The Interrogation	p. 149
Our Sons	p. 151
Picture of a Cop's Wife	p. 153
Nigger Reflex	p. 154
John Burge, Retired	p. 155
Roes and the Night Stick	p. 158
Street Justice	p. 159
An Operation	p. 160
Working Narcotics	p. 162
What Happened This Week	p. 165
For Henry Dumas	p. 168
Brooklyn South Blues	p. 170
Have You Seen Me	p. 171
Untitled #2	p. 173
Defacement {1983}	p. 174
Ode to the Unfortunate Ones	p. 176
S.H.U.	p. 179
Nonviolent Resistance and a Cow	p. 180
Freedom of Speech	p. 181
I'm a Poet, Damn It!	p. 182
Festival on 102nd Street	p. 184
Sacred Land	p. 186
Psalm for Equations	p. 188
Rudy Awakening	p. 189
The Voice on the Subway	p. 190
The Sign in My Father's Hands	p. 192
Cops & Robbers 2	p. 194
Compassion	p. 196
The Noble Speech	p. 198
Stopped by Cops	p. 201
Arrested	p. 202
The Story So Far	p. 203
Blackman Brotherman & the Highway Patrolman	p. 205
Insiders	p. 211
Introduction	p. 213
On Giving a Poetry Reading at Arthur Kill Correctional Facility	p. 215
The Guard	p. 216
The Semipermanent Gate List	p. 217
Guarded (Dropping Daddy Off at Jail)	p. 218
Prison/Clouds	p. 220
Come and Take Me	p. 221
C Block (Excerpt from "The Prisons")	p. 223
The Gates (Excerpt)	p. 224
From The Cinnamon Bay Sonnets	p. 226
Teaching in Prison	p. 227
Slow Notes, Found Rhythms	p. 230
Ultimate Aphrodisiac	p. 231
Dead Man Walking	p. 232
Commencement	p. 234
C.O.	p. 236
Plea for a Captive	p. 238
Last Night in Film Class	p. 239
Dreamers	p. 241
Introduction	p. 243
He Looks the Other Way	p. 245
Security and Peace	p. 247
Cop	p. 249
Missing in Action	p. 250
A Curse on the Denton Cops, the Lot of Them	p. 251
Law & Order	p. 252
A Date with Officer Belding	p. 253
Most Wanted Man	p. 254
Life of a Police Lover	p. 255
Landscape with Usual Suspect	p. 257
Wheeler Avenue	p. 258
Not On My Beat	p. 259
The Cop Gun	p. 260
Cops Care	p. 261
Slumnight	p. 262
The Daily News	p. 263
Cop & Robber (Song)	p. 264
Nightmare 9	p. 265
Forensic	p. 266
First Sight	p. 267
Long Day's Journey	p. 268
Please Stay Inside Your Car!	p. 270
That's My Lucky Number?	p. 272
Toilers From the Sea (Excerpt)	p. 273
Kevlar City	p. 275
Afterword: Post-Terror	p. 277
Acknowledgments	p. 278
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