Bobby Bostic, a St. Louis story of faith and perseverance, has published over 10 books, focusing on youth crime, mentorship, and breaking barriers that are placed through old systemic practices.
He mentors boys at local juvenile detention centers by helping them express themselves through poetry, teaching soft skills, preparing them for job interviews, and filling out college applications.
Bostic’s most recent poem, ‘The Terrible Bullet’ offers a conversation between Bostic and a bullet, which has human qualities. The first stanza reads:
Bullet can I ask you a question
Why are you so terrible in the wake of your onslaught things turn horrible
See how you rip through bodies and kill so many dreams.’
Bostic wrote the poem while he was at Southeast Correctional Center in solitary confinement. He was reading a newspaper and saw a story about a local woman who was killed. It made him think of the impact of gun violence. Bostic began to reflect on his own mistakes and how he grew up— thinking to himself, ‘Here I am serving life in prison and I should have never done what I did 20 years ago.’
Bostic grew up in the inner city of St. Louis in an impoverished community by a single mom on government assistance.
“We lived in extreme poverty which led me at an early age to commit petty crimes,” said the writer.
He broke into cars, and snatched purses which then led him to sell drugs, he said selling drugs came with a lot more than breaking into cars. It’s a different ball game. In the winter of 1995 at just 16 years old, he was arrested for robbery and sentenced to 241 years in prison. After spending nearly 30 years in prison Bostic made parole and was released this past Fall.
For days Bostic couldn’t stop thinking about the story he had read in the newspaper, and that’s when he began to write his poem. Many of his prison mates read his poem, they felt moved by his honesty about the ripple effect of the bullet. Some asked for copies to send back home to their family and friends.
He wondered if the folks who killed that woman understood what they were doing by pulling the trigger and killing her.
A line in his poem reads ‘ The bullet is the cause of death, but it’s man who pulls the trigger.’
“As we mature we realize the unnecessary pain we caused living how we did,” said Bostic. “My poem is an expression of how they were feeling.”
Bostic writes to heal, unfortunately, but laments that his poem still speaks to the society we live in.
“Man, I hate that my poem is timeless,” he said. “We can’t keep ignoring what gun violence does, it’s more than taking the life of someone or causing life-altering changes like becoming paralyzed. Gun violence ruins the lives of both individuals involved.”
Bostic reads his poem at high schools, using it as a tool to mentor the young boys he works with. He wants to teach them healthier ways to express all their feelings, not just anger. He hopes they learn the importance of keeping a cooler head and how not to react so quickly when provoked, informing them that all their actions have a consequence.
“There is no limit to what my boys can do,” Bostic said. He calls them his boys because they are all of our children. He said he was once them, a misguided young person.
“I know I was a problem back then, but now I’m giving back. I’m a part of the solution.”
Ashley Winters is a Report for America reporter for the St. Louis American.
