Dante, fatherhood, and starvation behind bars

Abstract

This article documents the responses of incarcerated men to Dante’s story of Ugolino in canto 33 of Inferno. Reading Dante’s poem in prison theater workshops the men are inspired to write about the ways in which their own children, like Ugolino’s, have suffered because of the incarceration of their father. Interweaving fragments of Dante’s text into their stories the incarcerated readers generate narratives that explore the multiple meanings of starvation. While Ugolino’s children die starving for food, the children of incarcerated fathers are starving for love, family, and community. Like the majority of men in American prisons the participants in these Dante theater workshops are people of color and their writing highlights the impact of mass incarceration on black and brown communities in America at the same time that it demonstrates the continuing relevance of Dante’s poem to readers confronting issues related to justice and its absence in the twenty-first century.