For many years I had very long hair. At the time, I had a roommate who had hair that swept past her knees. Mine was only to the small of my back until one morning, I woke up and desperately needed a change. So I had it all cut off. Short.

The very next day the warden issued a memo announcing a new DOC policy: All inmates had to wear their hair within certain length limits. The people I lived with were totally convinced that I had prior knowledge of the memo, that I had some insider info because of my sudden hair cut. Truly it was a coincidence, but to this day people sidle up to me and ask me if I know if anything is going on that they should know about. I never know anything. I am so out of the loop I can't even find it to get in on the Chinese whispers. No matter. The legend of my foreknowledge lives on.

The hair policy with which we have to comply states that we cannot shave our heads and that our hair can be no longer then shoulder length. There was much debate over what shoulder length is (remind you of another debate over what "is" is?).

People felt strongly about cutting their hair especially some of the young girls. Their hair was their pride and joy. Since then people have adapted and many, many hours are spent in designing complex intricate patterns of braiding. They pore over each other's heads and create amazingly beautiful styles in fantastic combinations of curls and waves and braids and twists and spikes and who knows what half those things are called. They are living sculptures. I believe that the enforcement of the hair length policy has magnified their creativity. It reminds me of the exercise of poetry.

One of the most useful communication lessons I learned a long time ago was if I could not express what I wanted to say in a haiku, I probably didn't know what I was talking about. Clarity of thought, lucidity, precision are closely related to brevity. Not that length necessarily indicates flabbiness and incoherent blithering, but if it can't be distilled into a single short sentence, the author has based the writing on a fuzzy premise.

In the same way a haiku can be marvelously invigorating and refining--what exactly am I saying and how can I say it all exactly? Sonnets are another rigorous exercise which force a person to find solutions within a very specific structure. And it is in this way I think the structure of the hair policy has stimulated extraordinary creativity.

Instead of boring old long hair there is ubiquitous beautiful hair; there are clever cuts, sculpted heads, variety. One of my personal favorite hair adaptations is the dandelion sported by young black women. Instead of straightening their hair to grow long and beautiful, they grow it long and beautiful and natural in airy globes that look much lighter than the old '60s Afros. They revel in magnificent healthy heads of chemical-free hair.

It's one of those curious ironies or perhaps paradoxes that while the DOC attempted to conform us to a uniform look, the policy has instead spawned an intense awareness to express selfhood and uniqueness through hair design. (Elizabeth Haysom, Fluvanna Review, April 28, 2005)

Elizabeth Haysom is presently incarcerated at the Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women in Troy, Virginia. This column is one of a series, published under the general heading 'Glimpses from Inside.'