The Rose That Blossomed from the Prison Yard

Derrick Brooks grew up in urban poverty with adult drugs, prostitution and hustling as the frame of his life. He knew love, there was always love, but there was not much else for the innocence of a child in his childhood. By 12 he was hustling. By 16 he had entered prison for the first time.

Poetry saved Derrick in prison, became a reason for his days. His are poems of the political reality of being Black in our society. Of the pain of his childhood while also of love. If you let them, thes...