“These last weeks have been challenging: One of my closest, longtime friends died very suddenly and another dear friend who is in prison was denied the parole we were certain would be approved. But amidst the darkness and sorrow, there has also been this strong beacon of light in the form of Johnny Rodriguez.
Johnny’s story is in many ways POPS the Club’s origin story. This is the Cliff’s Notes version, or this article would have to be a book.
The story goes like this. Back in 2010, when Johnny was a 17-year-old junior at Venice High School, he took my husband Dennis’s English class. That year I had a grant from PEN America (LA) to work for a semester as a writing instructor in one of Dennis’s classrooms. And so both Dennis and I had the good fortune to read Johnny Rodriguez’s writings. We were astonished.
In fact, the first time Johnny turned in an essay, Dennis was sure he had plagiarized it, and so he insisted Johnny write his pieces in class and turn them in that day. It turned out the kid was a savant, a truly gifted writer…Then one winter day Johnny didn’t come to class which was unusual, and to make a long long story short (you can read it here in Witness LA), Johnny and his brother had stupidly gotten into a fight in a bar and that fight ended with Johnny shooting someone. The victim lived, but the DA decided to charge this 17-year-old with no record as an adult and threatened to ask for Life (soon I learned this happens far too often). Johnny wound up taking a 22-year plea deal, and when Dennis visited him at New Folsom prison in November 2012, he came home with a deep, deep understanding of the pain, sorrow, helplessness, and stigma connected to loving someone serving time…
Thanks to Scott Budnick’s intervention, eventually Johnny was transferred to Ironwood where he could earn a college certificate. He earned three. He wrote, and he wrote. We published his poems and stories in our POPS anthologies each year. And maybe most important of all, Johnny did all the hard work inside. This means that this precociously brilliant young man traveled deep inside to work through the rage and loss that had led him to commit his crime. Every time I spoke to him or received a letter, I was aware that this young man was becoming a deeper, wiser person, one of the deepest, wisest people I know…
In 2016 Johnny and approximately 125,000 other men and women in prison in California applied for a commutation of sentence from Governor Brown.
Then a miracle happened. In August 2017, after eight years inside, Governor Brown selected Johnny to receive a commutation. And he came home.
Ever since August, in addition to being an active member of the Anti-Recidivism Coalition, working a couple jobs, applying to universities (he’s been accepted already to three or four) and attending college, Johnny has been an active and important members of POPS. Just this month he was elected to serve on our Board of Directors. Johnny traveled to the light and found it and he brings it into the room every time he enters.
At POPS we talk a lot about the tension our organization experiences as we traverse that line between light and dark. Prison is darkness, but POPS is light. And we see the light in every POPS student’s smile, hear it in their drive to write poetry or make art, feel it in their camaraderie, tenderness and kindness to each other.
And Johnny is one of the most vivid examples of the light, so in honor of spring solstice, we write to say again thank you for helping to bring the light!”
Sincerely,
Amy Friedman
POPS Executive Director and Co-Founder
Visit Popstheclub, or find them on Twitter @popstheclub and on Facebook
Discover what POPS the Club is all about.
—
If you believe in the work we are doing here at The Good Men Project, please join like-minded individuals in The Good Men Project Premium Community.
◊♦◊
◊♦◊
Photos courtesy of the author.