In Waterlines, Louisiana native Alison Pelegrin gives us poems that describe the terrible power of nature even as they underscore the state’s beauty. The poet moves from the familiar gaudy delights of life in New Orleans to immerse the reader in the vastly different experience of living north of Lake Pontchartrain. In this fractured world, the Bogue Falaya River becomes a highway paved with benedictions, psalms, and praise for ordinary things, as Pelegrin searches the unfamiliar for an incarnation of home.Water―the threat of hurricanes and floods, as well as the tangled geographies and histories of the rivers and lakes themselves―sustains the poet as she settles into the casual beauty of “the daily route,” finding spiritual depth and delight in both human and natural wonders.“It’s said that figures as different as Jefferson and Goethe were comfortable in the world because they were at home at Monticello and Weimar respectively, and the same is true of Alison Pelegrin. Waterlines starts locally and then radiates outward, not geographically so much as emotionally and spiritually. There are poems about faith, poems of wry and even scary self-examination, poems that combine these themes and more. Pelegrin stays close to her roots yet journeys out and back, ranging widely and then coming home to tap strength and sustenance. In the end, Waterlines is a big, big book.”―David Kirby, author of Get Up, Please

Waterlines: Poems

Literature & Fiction

Pelegrin, Alison

Poetry

LSU Press

Whether by way of visitations from secular saints, hauntings from childhood, or back talk from ?indelicate broads,? a complicated world speaks to and through Alison Pelegrin in Our Lady of Bewilderment. An unusual blend of mystic-comedian, Pelegrin explores physical and psychic beauty and terror without losing sight of wonder. Drawing on the aid of beings real and imaginary, Our Lady of Bewilderment offers humorous, honest, and intimate poems contemplating life?s traumas and joys, filtered through the religion-infused secular traditions of Louisiana.

Our Lady of Bewilderment: Poems (Barataria Poetry)

Alison Pelegrin's The Zydeco Tablets is a lively, memorable series of character portraits rooted in her native Louisiana. Writing frequently in blank verse and other fixed forms, Pelegrin handles form so smoothly that it is almost invisible--though the music of these poems always lingers in the ear, both during their reading and long afterwards.

The Zydeco Tablets

Word Press

In Big Muddy River of Stars, her second full-length collection of poems, Alison Pelegrin continues her celebration of the quirks and characters of south Louisiana, tempered now by the devastations of hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. These sassy poems come on like a carnival parade, with boisterous shout-outs to sleepy rivers and Big Shot soda, crawfish and trailer trash and those git-r-dones who rebuild homes ravaged by hurricane and high water. Presiding over the book is the spirit of Chinese poet Li Po, Pelegrin's prodigal mentor and drinking buddy. Sharing his exultation and taste of recklessness, she wants to write the Li Po way” / wine and the wide world. And she does. With lines that laugh and rage and slur in the piquant tongue of her native Louisiana, Pelegrin knows how to play the blues in a bold and irreverent key.

Big Muddy River of Stars (Akron Series in Poetry (Paperback))

University Of Akron Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Pelegrin, Alison. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Pelegrin, Alison

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Pelegrin, Alison. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Waterlines: Poems

Our Lady of Bewilderment: Poems (Barataria Poetry)

The Zydeco Tablets

Big Muddy River of Stars (Akron Series in Poetry (Paperback))