UMD Scholar Helps Women Channel Motherhood From the Inside Out

When Taylor Chanel “Koi” Bagnerise was jailed in 2016, her daughter was a toddler. In the years that followed in prison, she agonized over the feelings of desertion she knew from experience her daughter must be struggling with. 

After her own mother prioritized drugs and men over her when she was a girl, “I vowed not to abandon my daughter, but it happened,” said Bagnerise in a recent phone call from the California Institution for Women in Chino. After killing a man in what she called a crime of passion, she is serving a sentence of 15 years to life for second-degree murder. 

More recently, however, the 32-year-old’s shame has abated after authoring a book of poetry dedicated to her daughter, now 11. When the girl received a bound copy in the mail, “she said, ‘You love me, you care about me, I’m special and matter to you,’” Bagnerise recounted. 

She wrote the book through the Children’s Literature Project, developed by a University of Maryland professor to help incarcerated mothers unpack parenthood through the pen. It’s run through Poetic Justice, a national nonprofit that leads prison writer’s workshops to help women process and heal from trauma; participants read and produce illustrated storybooks featuring mothers and children, then discuss the writings with each other, often cathartically. Though many are written in kid-lit style, the program is designed to benefit the authors as much as children.

“The goal is to create a safe space where the women can use children’s books as bibliotherapy,” said Reka Barton, assistant professor of education. A former elementary schoolteacher and literacy education expert, she designed the program after noticing in bookstores that prison-themed children’s stories featured only fathers. 

For Bagnerise, “It’s given me an avenue to put into words how I feel and to remedy the absence I have, the aching in my chest.”

Barton launched the program in 2024 as a San Diego State University professor shortly before joining UMD, detailing it in an article published last year in English Teaching: Practice and Critique. In addition to Chino, the program is offered in San Diego, with planned sites in Oklahoma and Maryland. Barton develops each curriculum that can run up to nine months, reviews instructors’ notes and travels to lead workshops when time allows. 

The subject matter is unsurprisingly heavy. In “Under the Same Moon,” the author wrestled with the geographical gulf between her and her child. In “The Phone Call,” the protagonist reconciles conversations with her daughter in 15-minute intervals. One mother penned a letter to her younger self with parental advice. In "Mommy, You Are Sleeping in my Heart," Bagnerise wrote: 

God shows me grace in the eyes of you, my daughter, my Earth angel, my reflection
I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you, and that is my greatest confession

The project has blossomed as female incarceration has spiked. The population of women in prison has grown at twice the rate of men since 1980, according to the Sentencing Project, and mothers impacted by the justice system have an estimated 1.25 million children, Barton said. 

The mere presence of books inside a prison can be healing, Barton said: “There’s a lack of sensory imagery—everything is grays and blues and drab. Something even as small as an illustrated children’s book adds positivity and color.”

Next month, many children of incarcerated authors are set to take a bus past the Chino prison gates for a read-aloud; the authors are also lobbying to shelve books in the visitation room permanently. Many women can’t find the right words to describe their lives or feelings during visitations, so their books can guide conversations, Barton said.

Barton learned about Poetic Justice in 2023 after Katie Turner, the organization’s California program director, led a workshop in her classroom. Afterward, Barton pointed out the established science backing the program, shedding “a whole new light” on the mission, Turner said.

“Reka brought this unbelievable amount of research around multiple literacies, how stories can be defined and what their significance is between and among the families of incarcerated women,” Turner said.

After joining the team as a visual educator, Barton produced an interactive art exhibit, “Voices on the Inside,” blending forms like reading, writing, photography and audio installations, staged at a San Diego public library. She noticed visitors gravitating toward children’s books on display, prompting her to distribute them at a poetry workshop in the Chino prison. The women grew emotional but “saw a lot of things that weren’t the reality of their lives—mainly that the moms were missing,” said Barton, prompting her creation of the literature project.

As it grows, so too will Barton’s exhibit, set to reopen at California State University San Marcos this year, with plans to bring it to Maryland next year.

Meanwhile, Bagnerise, a yogi, is working on a second book, about meditation for children overwhelmed with anxiety. 

Since the publication of her poetry, her daughter has shown her an emotional vulnerability and willingness to deepen their connection, and her self-esteem has improved, Bagnerise said.

“I don’t know when I’ll be able to hold her again, but until that happens, these words can embrace her,” she said.