Aneesa Baptiste
Prof. Raquel Corona
EN 102
10/17/2014

Hard Rock Returns to Prison from the Hospital for the Criminal Insane by Etheridge Kinght

How did you respond to this poem emotionally? Which words caused your emotional response and pull to this poem to be so strong? Discuss the general premise of the poem: what is happening? Why did this particular experience speak to you as a reader?

In “Hard Rock Returns to Prison from the Hospital for the Criminal Insane” by Etheridge Knight, the emotion I felt was sympathic. Sympathy towards the prisoners for the treatment given by the guards. The words that drew me in were, “The testing came, to see if Hard Rock was really tame.” “And Hard Rock did nothing. Just grinned and looked silly, His eyes empty like knot holes in a fence.” Basically, what is happening in the poem is that the other prisoners looked up to Hard Rock as their champion against the prison guards but with the many beatings and undergoing electric shocks and what not, it took a toll on Hard Rock's on an emotional level, he became “empty” as if he no longer care to defend himself and his inmates against the guards. Prisoners do tend to be rowdy and rough and guards must take action at times to secure an order but the time period of when this poem was written was in the 1960's where race was an issue. So what draws me into this was that maybe there were some guards that were racist and treated the prisoners harsher than was necessary.