Marilyn Buck R.I.P. - after 29 years in U.S. prisons and a few weeks of release

international | anti-capitalism | press release

Thursday August 05, 2010 17:51

by R.I.P.

After 29 years of U.S. prisons and a few weeks of release activist Marilyn Buck http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_Buck passed away with cancer on August 3rd.

Our dear comrade Marilyn Buck made her transition on August 3 peacefully and surrounded by friends at home in Brooklyn. She had been released from federal prison on July 15, 2010.

Details of memorials and where to send cards and donations will be posted soon.

"... I survived, carried on, glad to be
like a weed, a wild red poppy,
rooted in life"

Former Political Prisoner
Marilyn Buck began her antiracist activism as a teenager in Texas. As a college student, she organized against the war in Vietnam and in solidarity with the Black liberation movement. “After less than a decade as a political activist,” she wrote,“I went to prison, convicted of procuring firearms for the Black Liberation Army. I faced 10 years in prison—a very long time for a young woman."

After serving four years, Marilyn was granted a furlough from prison and did not return. She spent the next eight years in clandestinity. Marilyn was recaptured in 1985. In addition to charges related to Assata Shakur’s escape, she was convicted of conspiracy to protest government policies (the invasion of Grenada and military intervention in Central America) through the use of violence against government property. Her total sentence was 80 years.

Poet, writer
“The trials, those years of intense repression and US government denunciations of my humanity had beat me up rather badly. Whatever my voice had been, it was left frayed. I could scarcely speak.” Instead, Marilyn wrote. “For prisoners, writing is a life raft to save one from drowning in a prison swamp. I could not write a diary or a journal; I was a political prisoner. Everything I had was subject to investigation, invasion and confiscation. I was a censored person. In defiance, I turned to poetry, an art of speaking sparely, but flagrantly.”

Marilyn’s poems can be found in many collections, in her chapbook, Rescue the Word, and on her CD Wild Poppies. She was awarded three prizes by the PEN Prison Writing Program, including first prize for poetry in 2001. Some of her poems are online here.

Translator, Teacher
For many years Marilyn translated for Spanish-speaking women held in prison, and she translated Spanish literature to English. In 2009 City Lights published her translation of Uruguayan poet-in-exile Cristina Peri Rossi’s extraordinary collection, State of Exile. Read more about her publications.

She also taught writing, GED preparation, history, and yoga inside.

imagination
One of more than 100 political prisoners in the United States, Marilyn's story is proof that imagination and solidarity can’t be stifled, no matter how many prisons or patriot acts we face.

more detail......

http://marilynbuck.com/

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Comments (1 of 1)

Prison rates

by T

Thu Aug 05, 2010 19:24

Readers should be aware that the US has the highest prison rate in the world. Prison rates are often expressed as number of people in prison per 100,000 of the population. Within most of Europe it varies from about 60 to about 150 per 100,000, whilst Russia is up around 530, China is at about 120 and the US is at a massive 714 per 100,000.

For anyone who was around during the Cold War, we used to hear endlessly about the Land of Freedom and how so many people were locked up in Russia. How ironic it is that the US far exceeds them all now.

The question has often been asked as to why this is so but it is a measure of how much the lid has to be pressed down firmly on the population to allow the system to operate for the benefit of the wealthy. And Marilyn Buck is just one of the many people who have had their lives stolen by this system. It is incredible that she got 80 years for these supposed crimes, while for example we have direct evidence for example from the recent WikiLeaks documents, that thousands of innocent people have been murdered by the US govt and it agents and actors and absolutely nothing is done about it and much of this goes to show that they are not actually concerned about crimes per se, but about the political side of the fence that someone is on.

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Marilyn Buck R.I.P. - after 29 years in U.S. prisons and a few weeks of release

Comments (1 of 1)