Alison Pelegrin, Louisiana’s Poet Laureate, believes that “poetry touches something that’s kind of primal and universal,” and so it belongs everywhere, for everyone. That universality extends to prisons, too.
This is the boundary-breaking concept behind Pelegrin’s Lifelines Poetry Project, a sustained effort to infuse poetry and writing workshops into Louisiana’s correctional institutions. The recipient of the Poet Laureate Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets, Pelegrin has received a $50,000 award that includes $15,000 for a civic project; she developed Lifelines as that project. Her community partner, the New Orleans Poetry Festival, will receive a matching grant of $10,000 at the end of the project for their in-kind contributions.
In February, Pelegrin had visited Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola for a quick stop while at a conference nearby. As she discussed poetry with the men inside, Pelegrin wondered how to make her writing workshop visit there a regular occurrence that could extend to other penal institutions throughout the state. She began conversations to make it happen.
“It matters a lot, I think,” she said. “If you’re serving a long sentence in a prison in Louisiana, you’re building a life, right? This is a way to add richness to that life.”
Armed with worksheets bearing short, digestible poetry prompts, Pelegrin has spent the months since arranging prison workshop visits. During these workshops, she begins with initial ice-breakers, then urges the group to read the poems aloud and talk about lines that stood out to them. She then encourages them to write responses—poems she sometimes saves or shares, with permission.
Pelegrin noted that these worksheets are no different from poetry prompts found in community centers or classroom spaces, a deliberate choice “to emphasize the common humanity” of those engaging with the text and taking tentative steps to become writers themselves.
Brian Pavlich
Louisiana Poet Laureate Alison Pelegrin, founder of the Lifelines Poetry Project
“Depending on the group, conversations may take different turns, but what was important to me is we were all kind of coming from the same place,” she added.
Pelegrin favors bringing in shorter poems to discuss, so as not to intimidate, highlighting poets such as Lucille Clifton and C.D. Wright. Haiku poets are some of her favorites.
So far, she has visited seven prisons, correctional facilities, and youth lockups across the state, with two more visits already scheduled.
“This is actually pretty easy work in that the people I’m encountering are so eager to have this conversation, and very thoughtful and insightful,” she said. “It’s a pleasure to facilitate in this type of environment.”
Pelegrin plans to highlight some of the poetry written by incarcerated individuals as a result of the project at the upcoming New Orleans Poetry Festival this spring. She has other ideas, too.
“My hope is that after this year, after my platform fades, that I can take really substantive and meaningful steps to continue this work,” she said. “I need to be able to set up a group of people who are approved in the Department of Corrections, and we can go out in groups and continue these poetry workshops.” In her wilder dreams, Pelegrin envisions a multi-institutional creative writing journal.
Either way, she is doing her best, right now, to bring poetry to as many prisons as she can—because even behind bars, “your heart and your mind are free.”
Learn more at lifelinespoetryproject.com.
