A museum gallery is a bounded space, but the cultural work of an exhibition defies containment. In presenting Captive State: Louisiana and the Making of Mass Incarceration, the Historic New Orleans Collection embraced a participatory model of exhibition development. HNOC staff gained insight and inspiration from an advisory committee of academics, advocates, and the formerly and currently incarcerated. Now, add to that list of collaborators a fresh set of voices: nine Louisiana-based poets.
The project began in midsummer 2024, with a conversation between Louisiana Poet Laureate Alison Pelegrin and Captive State curator Eric Seiferth. Pelegrin proposed bringing fellow poets to tour the exhibition and respond in verse. There would be no prompts supplied, no stylistic or topical guidelines imposed. Pelegrin’s first visit to the exhibition, she recalled, had left her in “stunned silence.” But it also left her determined to process her learnings through art. “I couldn't predict how poets responding to Captive State would take shape,” Pelegrin said, “but I was certain that the result of this group of poets responding to what we saw, felt, heard, and thought while experiencing the exhibit would be formidable.”
Captive State curator Eric Seiferth welcomed the group of poets to experience the exhibition on August 30, 2024. Photo by Keely Merrit, HNOC
On August 30, HNOC staff welcomed Pelegrin and her group—Stacey Balkun, Kelly Harris-DeBerry, Jessica Kinnison, Karisma Price, Christopher Louis Romaguera, Mona Lisa Saloy, Sha’Condria “iCON” Sibley, and Gian Francisco Smith—to HNOC’s Royal Street galleries. By this time Megan Holt, executive director of One Book One New Orleans (OBONO) and a longtime HNOC partner, was on board. A public performance, all agreed, was in order, and Holt suggested that the works debut at OBONO’s annual Words & Music Literary Festival, in November.
Kelly Harris-DeBerry recites "Captive State: From Forever–Forever" at the annual Words and Music Festival, presented by One Book One New Orleans, on November 22, 2024. Photo by Amber Johnson, HNOC
Captive State co-curator Kevin T. Harrell acknowledged that the poetry collaboration challenged traditional curatorial practice. “As curator, I spent a lot of time thinking about objects, themes, and a chronology that I felt best told this story about our state,” Harrell said. “Having poets wander unguided through those spaces seemed to invite a certain disobedience to that careful planning as they discovered their own chronological paths, themes, and relationships between objects. It was a method of interpreting our work that struck me as genuine, unpredictable, and meditative.”
Left to right: Sha'Condria “iCON” Sibley, Gian Francisco Smith, Karisma Price, Jessica Kinnison, Kelly Harris-DeBerry, Christopher Louis Romaguera, Stacey Balkun, Mona Lisa Saloy, Alison Pelegrin. Photo by Amber Johnson, HNOC
All of these elements—truth-telling, provocation, hope—were in the air the evening of November 22, as the Captive State poets took to the stage of the André Cailloux Center for Performing Arts and Cultural Justice. One, Stacey Balkun, observed that “a poem is made up of two things, text and white space.” She continued, “The empty space (I hope) implies the existence of other stories—stories that were silenced, truths suppressed and even erased.”
For nearly six decades, HNOC has been dedicated to the stewardship of Louisiana history and culture. For much of this time, we have carefully honed and habitually guarded our institutional voice. But time has taught us that the most powerful stories are the ones we tell together.
Header image: Gian Smith recites poetry at the 2024 Words and Music Festival. Photo by Amber Johnson, HNOC
Poetic Reflections on Captive State
Use the timestamps below to skip to specific poetry performances in the video.
ALISON PELEGRIN (5:00)
“Ghost before Dying,” after Lori Waselchuk’s Grace before Dying
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MONA LISA SALOY (7:45)
“For Captive Convicts (God Bless You All)”
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STACEY BALKUN (14:45)
“Invisibility: An Anti-Ode”
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CHRISTOPHER LOUIS ROMAGUERA (18:45)
“What Can a Flimsy Pen Do?”
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KELLY HARRIS-DeBERRY (25:15)
“Captive State: From Forever–Forever”
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JESSICA KINNISON (30:15)
“Let Your Body Mortify However You Please”
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KARISMA PRICE (38:00)
GIAN FRANCISCO SMITH (44:30)
“Voice of the Voiceless”
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SHA’CONDRIA “iCON” SIBLEY (53:00)
Support and Thanks
Alison Pelegrin’s work with the Lifelines Poetry Project is supported by a Poet Laureate Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets, with generous funding from the Mellon Foundation.
HNOC sincerely thanks One Book One New Orleans (OBONO) for their collaboration and partnership on this program.
