‘I know it saves men’s lives’: Shaun Griffin, again named Nevada Poet Laureate, on why he’ll keep teaching poetry in prisons

Shaun Griffin may be one of Nevada’s greatest poets, but in his role as poet laureate, he is not often talking about his own poetry. Instead, he is using poetry to help incarcerated adults find their voice, their humanity and ultimately, their freedom. 

In August, Griffin was named Nevada Poet Laureate for a second consecutive term. He has published seven volumes of his own poetry, including his 2024 book No Charity in the Wilderness. He was awarded the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame Silver Pen Award in 1998 and was inducted into the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame in 2014. 

While he keeps busy writing his own poetry, he has also been teaching creative writing in Nevada’s correctional and restitution facilities since 1989.

“I know it saves men’s lives,” he said. That’s what has kept him doing it for decades.

“I’ve had a couple hundred men in the workshop over this time, and almost all of them have stayed out of prison,” he added. His reported success tracks with national data; a Rand Corporation study from 2013 found that inmates who participate in education programs have much lower recidivism rates. 

Griffin attributes the creative writing program’s success to both the content and the structure of the workshops. He carefully builds workshops around reading, studying, writing, revising, developing voice and, most importantly, communication.

“I insist that they treat each other with respect in the workshop … so they can discuss the poems openly and candidly, and give each other constructive feedback,” he said. “I don’t have any room for the negative stuff.”

For Griffin, the workshop isn’t about imbuing participants with a love of poetry and writing; it’s about giving them the skills they need to stay out of prison.

“I want them to leave with the knowledge that they have the skills to communicate what’s really going on within themselves,” he said. “If they can do that, they can problem-solve; they can learn to trust again … and that is what they’re going to need to stay out of prison.” 

Griffin and his students read poems both ancient and modern, and poems written by incarcerated people and free people. When Griffin feels the participants are ready, they study the craft of poetry and experiment with forms like sonnets and villanelles. Griffin is careful about teaching craft, though.

“I want to do that in such a way that helps them to become better poets,” he said. “I won’t do it if I don’t feel like they’re ready for it, because it’ll turn them off. Poetry is really a foil for me. I tell them that I will be happiest if they stay out of prison. I’m there to use poetry to help them get back to who they were before this all started.”

The final ingredient in the success of the creative writing program is time. A guest speaker once advised Griffin’s students to “change the perception of this time, not as a burden, but as a gift to re-vision how they’re living in this moment, how it is they’re alive, and how they can make the best art possible because they have time,” he said. “Change your frame about this. Look at this as a gift. Use it and write, study and read—read everything.”

The workshop recipe of reading, writing, developing communication skills, and time inevitably leads to a breakthrough.

“Almost every person in the workshop has finally come to a place where they write their breakthrough poem,” said Griffin. “After six months, a year, 18 months, they get to the real questions that you get to as a writer, which are, ‘Why am I here?’ ‘What am I doing with my life?’ and ‘Where am I going?’ When they cross that bridge, they write their breakthrough poem. I’ve seen it happen over and over and over again. And the poems make you cry. They’ll bring you to the floor.”

While Griffin attributes the creative-writing program’s success to the content and the structure of the workshops, others credit Griffin himself.

“He’s one of a kind,” said Emily Testwuide, the deputy director of programs for the Nevada Department of Corrections. “It’s so powerful—his patience, his ability to connect with these guys and pull out their emotions and thoughts and feelings. It’s pretty incredible to be a part of and witness.” 

Ismael Santillanes is a former inmate and participant in Griffin’s writing workshop. “Without Sean’s persistence, his mentorship, being able to actually see someone who is altruistic, not faking it for one second, just being an honest, good human being who cares about other people—that translated into how I view this world I live in, how I try to conduct myself with other people, and how I conduct myself with myself,” he said.

Santillanes, who was released in 2013 and earned his master’s degree from Antioch University in 2022, called Griffin his “mentor, brother, father and priest.”

Voices of authority and vulnerability

Over the years, Griffin has published an intermittent journal of inmates’ poems called Razor Wire. In the 2025 legislative session, the Nevada Arts Council made posters of 10 poems that had appeared in Razor Wire. The poems were displayed on the first floor of the legislative building as part of the Legislative Exhibition Series.

“I saw legislators, the public, officers, everybody reading those poems,” he said. “Some were in tears when they were done. … There’s an urgency to it that’s missing in a lot of poetry. There’s an unforgiving voice of both authority and vulnerability, because there’s this mix of having experienced so much pain and wanting to express the guilt, the remorse, the shame from all the crap that went down. And they’re trying to change, and they don’t know how to change.”

Nevada has five correctional facilities for men and one for women. Griffin has worked with the Nevada Department of Corrections and the Nevada System of Higher Education to establish creative writing workshops in five of them. The only facility without a creative writing workshop is Ely State Prison, because Griffin has not been able to find a volunteer to lead a workshop there.

Griffin said he will spend his next two years as poet laureate trying to get creative writing workshops permanently established as part of the lifeblood of each institution.

“We need this kind of opportunity for expression,” he said. “It costs virtually nothing, and it reduces all the negative indices of prison and all the reasons people don’t like prison. It keeps them from returning. It drops the recidivism rate. It saves the state money. It builds literacy in people. It builds the community back where they left because they can go home and return to it.” 

Testwuide, who would love to see an expansion of arts programs in Nevada’s correctional facilities, added that it helps families and staff, too. She said that the workshops “lower the temperature when staff can see another side of the offender population.”

Testwuide is excited to work with Griffin to build the program up. She has plans to help make the programs more permanent and stably staffed through legislative activities and by leveraging relationships with Nevada System of Higher Education institutions. 

Griffin recently completed a memoir about his 30 years teaching poetry in prisons called Because They Are People and is trying to find a publisher. Copies of Razor Wire are available for purchase at The Radical Cat and can be found at the University of Nevada, Reno’s Knowledge Center. More information about the workshops and opportunities to get involved can be found at the Nevada Prison Education Project Website.

Shaun Griffin will appear at the Tahoe Literary Festival, which takes place Friday, Oct. 9, through Sunday, Oct. 11. He’ll share the stage with California Poet Laureate Lee Herrick and Nevada County, Calif., Poet Laureate Karen Terrey at 1:45 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 10, at Tahoe Art Haus and Cinema, 475 N. Lake Blvd., in Tahoe City. At 3 p.m. that day, Griffin will give a talk, “Teaching Poetry on the Inside: Writing as an Act of Service” at The Understory by Wonderwood Books, 945 N. Lake Blvd., in Tahoe City. For more information, visit www.tahoelitfest.com.

For local poetry fans traveling south this fall, Griffin will also appear at the Las Vegas Book Festival on Saturday, Oct. 17, at the Historic Fifth Street School, 401 S. Fourth St., in Las Vegas. For more information, visit to lasvegasbookfestival.com.