Visiting Days

by Gretchen Primack

Visiting Days is a collection of persona poems "set" in a maximum-security men’s state prison like the ones in which the author has been teaching for many years. Incarcerated men and others speak from various places in the facility—the laundry room, the hallway, the school building, the visiting room, solitary confinement, and more. Perfect for those concerned with issues around mass incarceration and social justice, along with contemporary poetry lovers. Says poet Truth Thomas, "In writing about the mass incarcerated skeleton in America’s closet, Primack unapologetically affirms the fact of their existence and their humanity. This courageous work is authentic in the feel of its persona poems, masterful in its balance of poetic impressionism and realism."

77 pages, Paperback

Published March 15, 2019

About the author

Gretchen Primack is the author, most recently, of KIND, a collection of poems about animals and our relationship to them (Post Traumatic Press 2013). She's also the co-author of "The Lucky Ones: My Passionate Fight for Farmed Animals" with Jenny Brown (Penguin Avery 2012).

Her poems have appeared in The Paris Review, The Massachusetts Review, Ploughshares, The Antioch Review, Poet Lore, and many other journals. KIND is most readily available through her website (she's not an Amazon fan) at www.gretchenprimack.com/books.

Reviews

[Sparrow .]

I never read introductions – until the end – so I thought the characters in these poems were real people. (Each poem is a monologue whose title is a name, plus a location, such as: “Hector (South Hall).”) And they ARE real people – just fictional people: ones without birth certificates. It’s a Spoon River Anthology of felons.

Gretchen has taught writing in prisons for many years, and knows this forbidden planet. “Visiting Days” is, besides being art, an activist implement.

Prison is about yearning – but so is ordinary life.

Opening the book at random:

“Honeymoon with the smallest moon
shape and no honey, and still this room
is full of beams and honey.”

That’s from “Deneice (Trailer Visit).”

[Joyce Hunt · Rating 5 out of 5]

With Visiting Days Gretchen Primack has given us a rare view into a world most of us don’t like to think about – the world of incarcerated and easily forgotten Americans. Each poem is an unexpected experience. Through the combination of her personal experience working in prisons and her insightful poetic skill, Primack creates stories of people you want to talk to, to know deeply, whose journeys you want to follow. Visiting Days is a moving and extremely important book of verse.
So glad I read it!
Joyce Hunt

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gretchen does an excellent job of shining a light on a subject that does not get as much attention as it should. Through multiple viewpoints she makes these characters' experiences feel very real and her compassion comes through the page. An educational, emotional read about an important subject matter.

[Mary Purdy · Rating 5 out of 5]

How is it possible that a book can make you feel like you suddenly understand poetry better? Visiting Days transported me into a world where I found grace, sadness, humility, beauty and horror all at once. Gretchen Primack's use of language and imagery combined with a sense of intimacy and humanity in the content of the poems allowed me to feel like I was seeing glimpses into the lives of those who are so often forgotten and discarded by our society. There is something magical about the way she writes that makes me wonder if she can somehow read the fragments of the human mind thinking and experiencing their lives. I can read the poems a few times and always see something new. If you can catch her reading these in person, I highly recommend!