Posted inPoetry

Incarcerated Song

by Carnell Wingfield Jr. January 25, 2022February 1, 2022

Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.

Close window X

Republish this article

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Prison Journalism Project is happy to share our writers and reporters’ stories with your print and online audiences. You are free to republish them under a Creative Commons license unless otherwise noted on the page. You can use the URL or copy and paste the story into your CMS.

Here are our ground rules:

You must credit Prison Journalism Project. In the byline, we prefer “[Author Name], Prison Journalism Project.” At the top of the text of your story, please include a line that says: “This story was originally published by Prison Journalism Project” and include a link to the article.
No republishing of photographs, illustrations or graphics without specific permission. Please contact inquiries@prisonjournalismproject.org.
No editing the content, including the headline, except to reflect changes in time, location and editorial style. For example, changing, “today” to “last week,” or San Quentin to San Quentin, California. You can also make minor revisions for style or headline size, and you can trim stories for space. You must also retain all original hyperlinks, including links to the Prison Journalism Project newsletters.
No translation of our stories into another language without specific permission. Please contact inquiries@prisonjournalismproject.org.
No selling ads against our stories, but you can publish it on a page with ads that you’ve already sold.
No reselling or syndicating our stories, including on platforms or apps like Apple News or Google News. You also can’t republish our work automatically or all at once. Please select them individually.
No scraping our website or using our stories to populate websites designed to improve search rankings or gain revenue from network-based advertisements.
Any site our stories appear on must have a prominent and effective way to contact you.
If we send you a request to remove our story, you must do so immediately.
If you share republished stories on social media, please tag Prison Journalism Project. We have official accounts on Twitter (@prisonjourn), Facebook (@prisonjournalism), Instagram (@prisonjournalism) and Linked In.
Let us know when you share the story. Send us a note, so we can keep track.

Incarcerated Song

by Carnell Wingfield Jr., Prison Journalism Project
January 25, 2022

<h1>Incarcerated Song</h1>
<p class="byline">by Carnell Wingfield Jr., Prison Journalism Project <br />January 25, 2022</p>
 
<p>Jail bird,<br />Please quit,<br />Nobody cares,<br />Jail shit.</p>
<p>I can care less about who’s doing what in this situation,<br />If every thought that you have about someone else lands you a buck,<br />you would be rich.</p>
<p>Jail bird,<br />Please quit,<br />Nobody cares,<br />Jail shit.</p>
<p>My focus is on building my own Nation,<br />Seeing the world from a bird’s eyes,<br />from the high rise of my corporation,<br />Plucking ashes indo as I see the world from this window.</p>
<p>Jail bird,<br />Please quit,<br />Nobody cares,<br />Jail shit.</p>
<p>You want to ruin another life so you could be rich in punishment?<br />What is the worth in the end?<br />A bunch of stories with paperwork,<br />another failure to please other men?</p>
<p>Jail bird,<br />Please quit,<br />Nobody cares,<br />Jail shit.</p>
<p>Your homies mean more than your family?<br />Your homies are your family?<br />Another Actor,<br />Same script.</p>
<p>Jail bird,<br />Please quit,<br />Nobody cares,<br />Jail shit.</p>
<p>May you be the best where you are,<br />Your way of thinking is made for this place,<br />It’s your way of thinking that keeps you locked in this place,<br />With a mind like yours, you won’t get very far.</p>
<p>Jail bird,<br />Please quit,<br />Nobody cares,<br />Jail shit.</p>


 <p>This <a target="_blank" href="https://prisonjournalismproject.org/2022/01/25/incarcerated-song/">article</a> first appeared on <a target="_blank" href="https://prisonjournalismproject.org">Prison Journalism Project</a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.<img src="https://i0.wp.com/prisonjournalismproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/cropped-PJP-favicon-2.png?fit=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1" style="width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;"><img id="republication-tracker-tool-source" src="https://prisonjournalismproject.org/?republication-pixel=true&post=13295" style="width:1px;height:1px;"></p>

Prison Journalism Project trains incarcerated writers to become journalists and publishes their stories. Subscribe to Inside Story to receive exclusive behind-the-scene looks at our best stories, as well as author profiles and other insights.