A pleasing antidote for me to the news of the wildcat prison officers strike in England and Wales is the launch today of a book of poetry written by adult and adolescent women in HMP Cookham Wood, Kent. The book, with a forward by writer Esther Freud and published by the charity Create, is the culmination of one of the charity's projects: Free Inside.

Create employs professional artists to work with disadvantaged and disengaged groups across the country in order to bring a sense of value and worth to those who might feel themselves to be on the fringes of society. The poet Leah Thorne led the workshops at Cookham Wood.

The poetry that made it into the book is powerful and reflective, funny and sometimes extremely sad. During a visit to Cookham Wood recently I was privileged to watch some of the women perform what they had produced with the help of Thorne. The experience was unforgettable.

I have been concerned about women in prison ever since reading reports about the vermin infested conditions to which women prisoners were being subjected in Holloway prison a few years ago. Perhaps I was being naïve, but I was shocked to learn that women prisoners were treated with pretty much the same disdain by the authorities as their male counterparts.

Robust and challenging living conditions were the norm for the majority of men in prison, particularly in relation to sanitary provision, or the lack of it. "Slopping out" - the use of buckets in cells as toilet receptacles and the emptying of the same on mass in special communal sinks in landing recesses two or three times a day - was probably the most de-civilising aspect of prison life.

Too ashamed to expose their bodily excretions to their neighbours many prisoners instead chose to defecate into newspapers, pillowcases, or even, mind-bogglingly, jam jars, which would then be launched - usually sideways by blame-shifters - out of cell windows. This practice was so widespread and historically established that every male prison in the country had a dedicated "shit parcel squad" made up of several trusted prisoners using yard brooms and shovels with which to load sturdy wheelbarrows.

Nobody I knew complained. It was just another vagary of life on the wing. Until reading the scathing reports about HMP Holloway I hadn't considered that women prisoners were sharing this peculiar prison tradition. At the risk of sounding sexist, it appeared to me that the indignity of slopping out, and all that went with it, must have been doubled for a confined woman. (Things have improved somewhat now at Holloway it has to be said.) Somehow a rudimentary existence of steel, concrete, striped shirts, plastic buckets and shit parcels seemed perfectly adaptable for a man. For the woman prisoner however it looked to me like there was an added element of ignominy to the sentence, a surreptitious process of de-feminisation.

Years later as a journalist I visited a women's prison for the first time to watch rehearsals of a play that had been written by a female prisoner who had served 10 years of a life sentence. The play, produced by the London Shakespeare Workout company, was eventually performed to a packed audience in a West End theatre.

In the prison chapel I was struck at how similar to male prisoners the women behaved towards visitors. They were funny, shy, a little deferential, shared a bit of banter, but they were always polite and courteous, which reminded me that away from the context of crimes committed people in prison are just like people anywhere else.

The play they were working on was derived from Frederico Garcia Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba. The acting was proficient, the writing superlative.

"This takes us away from the negativity of prison," the young woman who sat next to me during a break said. "It's given me confidence, made me feel good." She worked on the prison "gardens party" and was wearing her obligatory prison issue work clothes of green overalls and heavy brown boots. Her clothing acted as another reminder of what I saw as the de-feminising of women prisoners which was underlined by the donkey jacket that was hanging over the back of her seat.

Regardless, the young woman's words echoed many I'd heard during my own time in prison about time spent in creative activity. Whether it's writing, drama, music or painting, there seems to be something about art and creativity that can transform a broken life like nothing else can. Art has powerful healing properties too I think.

That was what I thought as I watched the women in Cookham Wood performing, especially when I heard Lizzie' words:

I have never
Felt safe
I don't know
What that would feel like

Everyday I yearn for safety
Though I don't know what it means
I've never been there

Safety would be a big baggy jumper
Soft and thick like a blanket
I'd wrap it round myself
And snuggle in.

In publishing the women's poetry Create has done a wonderful job of bringing to our attention the fact that there is more to people in prison than the crimes that got them there. As a society we need to understand more the motivations of those who end up in prison.

This book, I think, brings valuable insights. It may also have made the writers feel good about themselves for a while, but this should not be cause for alarm. Helping people to feel good in prison might be no bad thing, for people who feel good about themselves are surely less likely to be inclined to cause harm or distress to others.

For more information about the Free Inside poetry launch please contact Katie Gilbert at Create on 020 7374 8485 or email katie@createarts.org.uk.