The questions are always posed by strangers, remote readers, and even my own friends: When did you begin writing? How did you ever learn to write so well, Reggie?

The answers are never so simple to proffer because the questions come after they have read or reread a single poem or a series of poems that had become their favorite, poems demanding explanations about its conception, composition, and inspiration. The When is easy enough to pinpoint but the How is attributable to any number of reasons. Few poets can account for those internal cosmic beings who commands the muse, answerable only to the invisible essence of time.

My radio sitting atop my desk blares out Jazz. I usually write while listening to those baad ass old Cats--Coltrane. Miles. Dizzy. Yardbird. And the smooth, sultry Lady Balladeers, all smoke and fire.

Any one of their cuts could've inspired the rhythmic syncopation that ebbs and flows through my more Jazzy poems.

And it could have been something I'd seen on TV-stark images emblazoned in the reservoirs of my mind--a gallant black olympic athlete streaking past hapless opponents and into the annals of history; A Police beadown of an innocent Black suspect and the Southcentral L.A. riots; serial killings; some Ghetto Black girl getting raped, impregnated; kids stomping, Marchin' to Death Row--some dusty old con taking his last breath, conjures inspiration.

It is the When question that evokes clarity of the moment that precipitated the heady burst of creativity.

It was August 13, 1983. Sweat poured profusely down my brown face as I stared at the twelve white members of the jury. Cold pale faces glared back. "How do you find the Defendant?" The Judge asked them. "Guilty, your Honor," the Jury Foreman said. "We Sentence him to Death." I sank in my chair. I was only 20-something then. Death?

I moved about sluggishly, as if in a dream. My Mama wept inconsolably. The prisoners stared in awe from a distance. Damn, Homie. You got the Death Penalty? their eyes seemed to say. But I was too proud to cry. The thought of being executed weighed heavily on my mind-and I slept for two long days.

I rose with the clear awakening of my own fragile mortality. How fleeting life is. But there was something about being trapped in a deep dark hole that makes you keep clawing your way back up-even if you'll never make it.

I refused to allow the jury's erroneous verdict to define me. I knew I was not--and will never be--the sum total equaling a mere Death Row Inmate, a number corralled, stored, locked away and forgotten.

I became fiercely determined to break the interminable cycle of boredom and loneliness and the implacable resolute despair that induces a gradual descent into madness.

I immersed myself in the books by the Black Harlem Renaissance writers: Richard Wright. Langston Hughes. Zora Neale Hurston. James Baldwin. Ralph Ellison, and so many others.

In the enforced solitude, reading burgeoned my consciousness, ignited sparks in the pit of my gut and raced through my bloodstream like wild brush fires. This is what led to my self-discovery as a writer. This is the answer to the How in the world did you learn to write like that?

I write everyday, I rewrite, Cut Polish. The blank white canvas of the page became creations filled with spectacular colors, images, sounds, and living, breathing beings. From the lowest depths of Human Misery flowed the sweetest testament of dreams.

They are the poems in this book, poems that garnered Awards and Honorable mentions and certificates of merit.

Leaving Death Row is my florid, ever-unfurling dream, my winged chariot of imagination and memories escaping this low-slung mass of steel and stone and bullet-proof glass that seeks to imprison their flight.

Reginald S. Lewis is an African-American poet, essayist and playwright on death row in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania. His poems, essays and stories have appeared in numerous periodicals in the United States, Canada and England. He has garnered several writing awards for his work, including three awards in P.E.N. American Center (writing awards for prisoners). Two of his plays have been professional produced. His deep concern for the well being of troubled young people has earned him the respect and admiration of many.

Headings on across the border

Past dead cities fading in the hazy

Dawn, the brown dust swirls, high like ghosts.

Been so long since I sat at Momma’s

Kitchen table,

Sizzling with hot buttered biscuits, deep

Fried chicken, and slippery chocolate cake.

Oh, I want to go back. Back,

Big and strong now, yet

Still a sweet little boy in

Momma’s weary melancholy eyes.

And now that I think about her--

I wanna go home.

Last time I saw the fellas

We were hanging out on the corner.

It was summertime and we were talking

Loud about nothin’,

Passing round the smudged, long-necked

Bottle of cold wine,

And watchin’ the girls float by.

They’re long gone now, most of them,

My cool gang, and now that I think

About them--

I wanna go home.

Back to Philly, my hometown,

The tall tenements swaying dreamy under

The dark urban sky,

Where fat Italian mothers

Lean on the sill of bedroom windows,

Seeing nothing.

Voices cutting across the grit

Of the day--it’s the impossible

Noise from the city--Super Sundays

And Eagle games. Homeboy Grover Washington’s

Horn blowing down the long cool alleys

At jazz concerts in Fairmount Park,

Where vendors shrill crazy--getting

Rich selling hot dogs and sodas and

Soft pretzels--coins jingling joyously

As slick sugar daddies cruise along

Kelly Drive in big shiny Cadillacs

Under the twinkling stars,

The top down,

Passing pretty rainbow girls, blowing kisses, and

Singing wild and passionate songs.

Death row took me so far out,

Far, far away--

And I never got to see you blossom.

Jennifer claims you’re mine, my daughter,

My baby girl, my beautiful little princess,

And I would never deny it. You are.

Tommy and Fats and Charlie and the

Rest of my old gang says the same thing--

"Boy, she looks just like you!" Proud and regal

With your shiny curly hair and plum-colored

Lips--the DNA wouldn’t even matter--because

I’ll leave the world to you.