WordShops registration is open! Learn about the festival's master-class writing workshops and reserve your seat here.

This website has a .gov link

The .gov means it’s official.

Louisiana government websites often end in .gov. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a Louisiana government site.

HTTPS Connection

The site is secure.

The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Jennifer Polson Peterson

Home Featured Authors & Panelists Featured Participant Lineup 2026 Jennifer Polson Peterson

Jennifer Polson Peterson serves as the 2024-28 Poet Laureate of Hattiesburg, Mississippi. In 2025, she was named a Laureate Fellow of the Academy of American Poets. Her poems have appeared in The Threepenny Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Colorado Review, Image, The Southern Humanities Review, and elsewhere. She teaches writing at the University of Southern Mississippi.

 

Schedule

Will be posted when available.

Degenerate Era of an Expanding Universe: Poems

Degenerate Era of an Expanding Universe is a book about apocalypses large and small. The poems in this meditative debut collection explore economic and climatological trends toward dissolution, and how these forces seep into the domestic sphere. Whether exploring the constellations of family dynamics or observing natural and human disasters, Jennifer Polson Peterson reflects on “ the newly unmade world” that nonetheless urges us to continue rebuilding.