Sometimes we forget that the people we incarcerate are just that; they're people. They are our friends, our neighbors, and our family members. When we lock them up, we take away their ability to contribute to the world.

Poetic Justice is a program here in Oklahoma, started by a woman named Ellen Stackable, and she goes into jails and prisons, and works with women, and teaches them how to write . . . poetry.

I'm sure that everyone in this room has engaged in some type of activity that could have gotten you thrown in jail, and we just happened to not get caught.

My goal today is to humanize the people involved in our justice system. They are just like you and me.

When we place labels on ourselves or when we place labels on other people, it draws a line.

My goal is to end a label-based society.

The ingenuity of the young people were that they were able to create a new reality out of their impoverished environment of where they were at.

Hip-hop was created out of nothing in an impoverished environment in New York.

When we think about justice, we rarely think about empathy and we rarely think about love.

There were only people from all over the world, just telling me to keep going and doing it.

I have this ridiculous faith in myself that it'll probably be okay. I will figure it out later.

Finally for me, my entire life makes sense. Everything that I've ever been through - every up, every down, every heartbreak, every loss.

I feel incredibly blessed to have been chosen to do this. I definitely feel chosen to do this.

The majority of the people in this room that see me today, have no idea what it's taken to get here.

See people for where they want to go.

It's better to help 10 people get to the finish line, instead of helping 100 people get half-way there.

I've learned on this journey that people also want to make a difference, but they're sort of like me - they just don't quite know how to do it. So when they find someone who's making a difference on the way, they support it.

The people that've told me 'yes' didn't have to tell me 'yes', but they did. Without them telling me yes, I couldn't do any of this work.

It's changed me. I think it's made me a lighter person. I think it's made me more of a believer in community - a believer in people.

With this work, all the dots in my life have connected. Everything makes sense for me. Everything that I've gone through, I've gone through specifically for this.

This work has changed everything about me. It's changed how I see the world.

When you wake up everyday and you're walking in your purpose, the feeling is kind of indescribable

In this work, I found my purpose in life.

I'm just not a person who can accept 'no'... A 'no' to me is like a 'maybe'. I think I've gotten this far because they're all 'maybes'.

I knew that when people pour that much into you; they give that much to you, somehow some way, you're supposed to give that back.