You Don't Know Me

In a Creative Writing class at a California Correctional facility, a former Communications Professor discovers a brilliant, incarcerated student named Franklyn Cole. In the very first class assignment: “Given the phrase, ‘Beneath Still Waters,’ write whatever comes to mind” – Cole captures the hidden motivations of a female prostitute who mechanically performs her tricks so she can deposit a $20 bill in the church collection tray and get that much closer to heaven.

Mr. Cole was eventually moved to other California prisons, but a three-year collaboration had already been cemented with the prison teacher, David Shapiro, who provided Mr. Cole with well-known Country Western song titles, posing the same question: “What comes to mind with each title?” Forty stories are the result, and from them the reader is transported through the hopes and fears of many downtrodden members of our society.

The prison teacher then created a photographic image for each of Mr. Cole’s stories – each image meant to intrigue the reader/viewer with further reflections on innocence, rage and sorrow.