Hal Cobb

In his 16th year of a life sentence, Hal Cobb is a founding member of Shakespeare Behind Bars (kyshakes.org) where he has served as an actor for 15 seasons at Luther Luckett Correctional Complex in LaGrange, Kentucky.

Cobb was inspired to write during a prison/college creative writing class in 2004 with subsequent regional awards including two JCTC Joyce Hancock Creative Writing Awards and publication in the literary journals Here and There and Jefferson Review.

Also an artist, he has work displayed at Prison Art Gallery (prisonfoundation.org) in Washington, D.C. Cobb was awarded an Honorable Mention for drama in the 2005 PEN Prison Writing Awards and in 2010 won First Prize for nonfiction/essay and Honorable Mention for poetry.


Articles by Hal Cobb

Prison and Justice Writing
Friday April 16

The Pursuit of Character

Prologue If looking to the future can cause trepidation, what is this uneasiness I feel in looking back? Memory has a way of playing tricks on the mind, weaving minor accomplishments into major feats, small slights to great grievances. Recollection can morph an accidental occurrence to deliberate heroism; reveal best intentions as off the mark.

Prison and Justice Writing
Friday April 2

salsa meditation

my hands will smell for days of onions, garlic
and jalapeños despite repeated washings after slicing, dicing
and mincing with my trusty lid-o-matic and plastic picnic knife
essential utensils of a prison prep chef in a concrete and steel cell-cum-kitchen