Courtrooms in criminal cases are often places of utter despair. And yet, when a guilty verdict has been handed down and a defendant faces sentencing there is often a sense of triumph. Justice has prevailed and a danger to society is being taken off the streets. But far too often the “danger to society” is also being taken away from a family. There are millions of American children with parents in jail. Despite their innocence, children suffer along with the incarcerated parent. Justice might have been served, but the cycle of deprivation is reinforced as parents are so often sent to prisons far away from their families.

I want my books to be bridges between the reality of urban life and the ideal. The only way that my inner city characters can be truly humanized is for me to bridge the gaps both in language and understanding. This is what I have tried to do in this book.

In Street Love, I write about the family of a woman who has been sent to prison. Junice, street wise and knowledgeable, is aware of what she faces. She understands fully that the system will protect itself more than her or her younger sister, Melissa, and that there is a real danger that the two young girls will just be an extension of the social ills which trapped her mother. Junice is determined to fight back.

As Damien, headed for the high road, sees Junice’s plight he also sees and is moved by her strength. His is a path already laid out, a cycle of success where Junice is facing the more familiar path of hopelessness. That they fall in love and can come together is my testament to the character and integrity of the urban teenagers I have met over the years. When the idea was murky in my head – I knew I wanted to write a love story that took place in the inner city – I came across a group of young high school girls in Chicago. These girls had all either had children or were pregnant. I was impressed with their determination to make it despite the dire predictions. They knew and advised me on their battles with city foster care systems and social welfare agencies. But what got to me most was their absolute determination not to accept victim status. After an hour of talking with them, listening to their resolve and seeing how carefully they managed the sometimes fragile flame of hope, I knew what I needed to write.

Damien takes a chance as well in loving a girl from the “wrong side of the tracks.” But his is a courage I also see and admire as I talk to young people.

I feel that I have to take the language of the street and do as much with it as possible. After reading a study on Shakespeare, I wrote my first draft completely in iambic pentameter. I live near a girl's Catholic School and I happened to be walking behind a group of 15 year olds. I noticed that the girls spoke in cadences of either four and a half beats or five beats (pentameter) and the rhythms were often broken between two speakers. I tried writing this way in Street Love and it worked. I then loosened up the verse with some rap elements just to emulate some of the simple bridge patterns you hear so often in Juvenile Detention centers. Finally, I tried to give the different characters unique voices to identify them for both a reading and listening audience. I love the writing process so all of this was fun.

There are over two million people incarcerated in the United States and over two million children whose parents are locked away from them. But people are more than numbers, more than discouraging predictions or studies of hopelessness. Street Love is my way of recognizing that the human spirit is no less noble because it lives in the inner city. – Walter Dean Myers
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