I was sent to prison in Michigan when I was just 17 years old in 1998. What started out as an argument and misunderstanding quickly turned into an altercation that ended in an exchange of gunfire. Nineteen years and nine months of my life were spent behind bars, shuffled around more than eight different prisons […]
Cozine A. Welch, Jr.
Cozine A. Welch, Jr. is a formerly incarcerated poet, community researcher, and educator. His written work has been published in The Michigan Quarterly Review, Plough Quarterly, the Periphery, and eleven consecutive volumes of the Michigan Review of Prisoner Creative Writing, where he held the position of Managing Editor. He is also former Executive Director of A Brighter Way, a nonprofit organization based in Washtenaw County, a Community Researcher for the University of Michigan Carceral State Research Project, as well as a former instructor of the Atonement Project and Theatre & Incarceration courses at the University of Michigan focused on restorative justice, reconciliation, atonement, and the role of the arts in healing and rehabilitation.