Author, poet, lawyer and criminal justice reform advocate Reginald Dwayne Betts took to the podium for an hour and a half in the first Spartan Speaker series event of the semester, sharing stories and poems about his past struggles as an inmate.
“It’s cold!” he exclaimed to roughly 100 people present Wednesday night in the Student Union Ballroom.
Betts shared his experience of incarceration at the age of 16 after being arrested and sentenced to nine years for carjacking.
“I was 16 years old and I had never touched a gun before in my life,” Betts told the audience. “I picked up a gun with a group of friends and I carjacked somebody.”
Betts explained the epiphany he had while in prison – he wanted to be a writer.
“I didn’t know what it meant to be a writer,” Betts said. “I just knew that writers wrote books and I loved books.”
Betts also told the story of how he decided to go to law school, in an equally epiphanous fashion.
He said he portrayed his passion for literature through a large tattoo on his back.
“I got a stack of books with wings tattooed on my back,” Betts said. “It took 22 hours to finish.”
However, the poet declined the audience’s request to see his tattoo.
“I’m not going to show y’all my tattoo because Title IX is a motherfucker,” he laughed.
Betts pens uses his poems to portray his personal experience to tell a greater story, as well as commentary and criticism on the current criminal justice system.
Line by line and stanza by stanza, Betts recited to the audience the trials of a fellow inmate who he said is innocent and still imprisoned.
In between each of his poems, Betts told short stories about other experiences that shaped him into who he is today, such as his son’s reaction to learning of his criminal past.
Shortly after his poems concluded, Betts moved into an open 45-minute Q&A session with the audience members.
Students asked Betts for advice on applying to law school.
“I know that right now engineering is the top major to get into law school, so I was wondering what your major was and how that helped you out?” public relations sophomore Emily Rainey asked.
Betts said not to hesitate because of a major.
“You should never make a decision on your major based on what’s going to get you into law school,” Betts concluded. “It’s absolutely meaningless.”
Business finance senior Jorge Lopez asked Betts how he overcame the hardships of incarceration.
“When you served time in prison, what gave you hope throughout that time?” Lopez asked.
“I kept myself busy,” Betts responded. “Whether it was me learning Spanish, getting a poem and an essay published, all of those things provided me with hope.”
