The poems quoted in italics throughout this piece, including the title, are by incarcerated writers and I share them with permission.


Even in life,
hearing the laughter of others, 
I long for life.

 

Before there was the Lifelines Poetry Project, there was me, standing in the library at Louisiana State Prison, also known as Angola. When invited to visit the poetry group there, I accepted, but also fretted about what I might offer in a prison where the majority are serving life sentences. Outside of poetry, where are the spots in which our lives connect? My visit took place right after Mardi Gras, and it was strange to exit the parade route with its neon colors, street dancers, marching bands, and go-cups to enter the largest maximum security prison in the nation, an 18,000-acre former plantation in the middle of nowhere. It was overcast when I arrived, and the close-cropped fields, groups of buildings, and labyrinth of fences draped with razor wire appeared black and white compared to the world I had left behind. 

Barbed wire, your shimmering coat is alluring, calling me 
like diamonds in the fiery glow of the day

I arrived empty-handed. I followed where I was led until I wound up at a small and orderly library. It reminded me of nothing so much as my high school, with its immaculate floors, scattered tables and chairs, and metal shelves the color of manila folders. During the break, I remember looking out of a window at a fence draped with razor wire, hoping that an ordinary bird I had seen for an instant might cross my line of vision again. The sighting reminded me of a poem by Paul Verlaine, quoted by C. D. Wright in One Big Self (a project informed by her visits to Angola with the photographer Deborah Luster): Le ciel est, par-dessus le toit / Si bleu, si calme! The sky above the roof—how blue, how calm! The poem ends with a lamentation on wasted life as the world goes on, but it’s also about seeing—no matter how narrow the view. 

I see the blackbirds fly 
and am jealous of their wings

On that day, my view was of a blank sky with a wire-topped fence scribbling through it. I was served a slice of carrot cake on a paper tray, and by this time, several of us were staring through the wire-backed windows. Whether or not a dirt-colored bird would reappear was totally out of our control, and in this way, it was like poetry itself. With poetry, no matter how hard you try, the words come when they will, with no explanation. The potential visitation of the bird was our spot of connection, and it mattered more than any physical object I might have brought with me. 

I can feel the wind blowing in my face
the clouds are getting dark O how the blessing of rain 
has come

The warden granted my request to bring in a single book, and I settled on In the Palm of Your Hand: The Poet’s Portable Workshop by Steve Kowit. I copied additional poems on the blank pages between chapters with the thought that no matter how the visit went, at least I could leave behind a book that might be useful. Lately I have been able to provide copies of The Sentences that Create Us: Crafting a Writer’s Life in Prison, edited by Caits Meissner, to participants courtesy of PEN America. I started providing blank notecards in case anyone wanted to copy a poem to share with the outside, and those notecards are the source of the lines quoted throughout this piece.

Twelve years old, 
swimming in the industrial canal. 
Floating on whatever floated by
and calling it fun.

Poetry can suspend time, and I flinch at the irony of yearning for that state among those who are afflicted with all of the time in the world. I was aware of how often I looked at the clock, wishing I could stretch time to fit in all of the things I wanted to say. The group had so many questions, and there were so many poets I could have mentioned. This is why I made follow-up worksheets, formulated from my notes, on group interests and things that came up in conversation. At Angola, we kept coming back to haiku, so I made a sheet about ways haiku could inspire imitations and new poems. These poetry worksheets are available on the Lifelines website. 

May you grow from the concrete 
And your life never end.

The welcome I received at Angola led me to assume that I would have no problem setting up visits to other prisons, but the opposite was true. It took months of tours, phone calls, lunches, favors, letters, emails, follow ups. It took state librarians, a university president, people with decades of experience navigating Louisiana’s criminal justice system, as well as random connections and goodwill when I least expected it, to begin establishing meaningful connections. Since making those first cold calls, I have been able to visit the Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women, B. B. Rayburn Correctional Facility, Florida Parishes Juvenile Detention Center, Raymond Laborde Correctional Center, and others. Sometimes there are so many people who wish to participate that I will offer two workshops when I am on a site. 

Let the earth mourn my absence
and the vibrant greens, yellows, reds
fade to black, fade to earth, fade to nothing.

My whole life I’ve felt like I was trying to get others to look at something only I could see. Looking out the window for that bird was different. In that room, in the prison libraries, chapels, classrooms and cafeterias where I have led Lifelines workshops, I don’t need to point. Poetry can’t change Louisiana’s shameful distinction as the incarceration capital of the world. It can’t erase the racial inequities of prisons, the overcrowded conditions, the children facing adult sentences, or the degrading spectacle of the Angola Prison Rodeo. It can’t erase the fallout of violence. Poetry is nothing, but everything. It does not need to justify itself. It flies beneath the radar and nests in razor wire. It’s portable, above suspicion. Poetry lodges itself on the inside in an untouchable place, and it can remain there until you choose to give it voice. In a world of control, poetry is the one thing you own; it is the bird in your hand, a god that serves us all. 

I unlock you so you can be free
and by unlocking you, 
I mean me.

 

Note: The New Orleans Poetry Festival has been my partner in this work, and after a so-called “road trip” with seven poets to Angola, we will celebrate Lifelines at this year’s festival, their tenth, in New Orleans, April 10–13. 

 

 

 

Alison Pelegrin is the author of several poetry collections, including Our Lady of Bewilderment (Louisiana State University Press, 2022), which won the Phillip H. McMath Post Publication Award in Poetry. Pelegrin is the recipient of fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Louisiana Division of the Arts, the Foundation for Louisiana, and the Louisiana Board of Regents. In 2023, she was appointed the poet laureate of Louisiana through 2025. In 2024, pelegrin received an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship. Through her Lifelines Prison Poetry Project, Pelegrin will facilitate poetry workshops in ten prisons and jails and five community centers. She will create a project website featuring four Lifelines podcasts, each of which will introduce a poetry prompt. Selected excerpts inspired by each prompt will be printed on posters to be distributed statewide. As a culminating event, Pelegrin will present the project at the New Orleans Poetry Festival.