James Broadnax has been locked up in a 6ft-by-10ft cell on death row in Texas for more than 16 years, and in that time he has developed coping mechanisms for passing the long and desolate days.
A favourite technique is to write spoken word poetry at his cell desk. He becomes so engrossed in the creative process that he can lose himself for hours, transfixed in what he calls a “time gap”. In one of his recent poems, featured in a short death row documentary, Solitary Minds, Broadnax, who is 37, describes how he writes:
“I’ve been here umpteen days never forgetting
