• Death Row
• Day to day
• Visitors
• Karl in Polunsky

• In the media
• Books online
• Cookbook

Life Inside

Karl in Polunsky

Karl provides a vivid and intelligent picture of what life is like living in solitary confinement on Death Row in his letters to his many friends around the world.

Here we provide some excerpts from letters written to his British friend Maggie.

4th July 2004

Today is rather a joyous occasion, within the walls of the prison as well as without.  Within perhaps more, because certain ‘holidays’ are given significance in the meals they serve us, and yes, the Fourth of July being one, therefore we had, arguably, the best meal since Christmastime.  Today it was BBQ meat, a bun, 3-4 ounces of potato salad, beans, green beans, and Lor’ have mercy, a brownie topped with chocolate icing!  So today there is some moderate joy and festivity, even in such dire straights and isolation as here on Death Row.  Men will no doubt be glad, standing on top of their beds, looking out of the 2” gap (5cms) called Window, and gazing fondly into the night sky, hoping to catch the rocket’s red glare, and bursting flare of fireworks.

… It is very difficult to explain without a greater description of my environment, but suffice it to say I am kept in this cell for 23 or sometimes 24 hours a day, any conversation is solely limited to hollering at the door or through the air ducts, and I find the majority of my ‘human contact’ through correspondence.

9th July 2004

Prison is very rarely quiet.  In fact, if the guards are not walking through, cleaning crews clanging around, they have count, passing out necessities, trays, doing showers, recreation, shakedowns, escorting nurses, and so much that there’s just a few hours of silence in the night.  For example,, necessities and ‘shakedowns’ occur as late as 11-12 (midnight) and breakfast is promptly at 3.0am.  But even for those few, wee hours the cleaning crew is sometimes running through, guards are walking round with flashlights, and even the silence is disturbed by the rattle of a typewriter and the odd conversation.

3rd November 2004

I can, sometimes, buy something nice or make a spread to share with my fellows, but it depends on my budget.  It’s really hard to explain what it’s like, but commissary comes onto the wing, several large locked ‘carts’ and a train of inmates and commissary officers, and one immediately hears a chorus of hoots and hollers, catcalls and bellowing calls, “Commissory is on the wing!”  “Commissory is on the pod!”  By all the inmates around me.  Everybody gets up and comes to their door with great excitement, exactly like kids in the candy store, in fact.

It’s hard to explain, but everyone is so happy… talking, coming to the door and joking around, hollering back and forth.  Sometimes just, “Hey!  KC!” “What?”  “Pffft” – the sound of an opening soda.  It’s a childish game like “gotcha” but still, in the moment it’s all laughter and fun.

1st February 2005

Well, I’m pretty sure I didn’t tell you about the visit I had from my sister and my niece?  Well, it’s been a bit over a year since I’d seen them last, and during that year my niece has grown so much!  Not just in size, now she’s not only talking in complete sentences, but entire ideas, thoughts, and ‘stories’ together…

My sister left us alone right away,(so she could go fill bags with food for me!) but I was a little stunned.  I mean, here’s this gorgeous, darling lil four-year-old who happens to be my niece although we’ve hardly talked, and I’m sure – to her – we’re mostly strangers, and she’s standing up on the chair holding the phone next to her face, and looking at me with those penetrating blue eyes … tell me, what do I say?

Well, she turned her back to see her Mom go – and I had the insight!  Well, why say anything?

CONTINUES HERE

back to top