The Flowers of the Penal Colony

Samuel Tracol. Jean Genet was placed in foster care by social services as a child. He ran away and was arrested for vagrancy, eventually ending up at the Mettray penal colony. The children there were subjected to forced labour until they reached adulthood, with the belief that outdoor work and strict discipline would rehabilitate them. Between 1926 and 1944, he was imprisoned in 14 different prisons, spending a total of about six years behind bars. During this time, he also wandered across Europe, experiencing various prison systems, including those in Nazi Germany and Czechoslovakia. In 1943, he was sentenced to “perpetual relegation”, or life imprisonment with hard labour for repeat offenders. Until 1938, those sentenced to perpetual relegation were sent to the penal colony in French Guiana. Imprisoned in mainland France, Jean Genet expressed in the opening pages of The Thief’s Journal his regret at not being sent to the French Guiana penal colony, which he saw as a defining moment in his criminal career. He was released in 1944 through the intervention of his friend Jean Cocteau. This was his final conviction.

Jean Genet writes about prison and his experiences of imprisonment in his “prison trilogy,” which includes Our Lady of the Flowers (1943), Miracle of the Rose (1946), and The Thief’s Journal (1949). The first two were, in fact, written while he was in prison. The prison walls are thus deeply woven into both Genet’s life and his work. They become a space for literary, poetic, and political expression, where he condemns the juvenile penal colonies and describes the torture that his imprisonment at Mettray represented.

Glória Alhinho: The walls and the Mettray penal colony hold a crucial place in Jean Genet’s personal and literary landscape, as it was within the prison walls that he began his writing journey. The walls represent an intimate, erotic place of self-discovery for him as both a person and a writer. For Genet, they are an organic space, embracing the children who meet and find themselves at Mettray, and who would later encounter each other again in other prisons. These walls bear the imprints of their despair, boredom, loves, and friendships. He even wrote a screenplay titled “The Language of the Walls,” about the history of the Mettray colony, although he never published it. Genet’s work also reveals a metaphorical world of flowers, which can also be linked to the walls. Patti Smith deeply understands this relationship, as she describes in her preface for the 2018 English edition of The Thief’s Journal. She reflects on the metaphor of imprisoned children transforming into flowers in a future book of life, thus paying homage to Genet’s imaginative world and his connection with walls and flowers.

ST. The walls can indeed be tied to the metaphor of flowers, as at Mettray, the prison walls are actually vegetal spaces; it is an open penitentiary environment without enclosing walls. In his short film “Un Chant d’Amour” (1975), the prison wall takes on a very explicit erotic dimension. Jean Genet also mentions in Miracle of the Rose the sacred wall of the central house of Fontevraud, an old abbey where he was never imprisoned. He also recounts the icy wall of the cell where he spent a night in Nazi Germany, which he describes as a form of torture. Thus, the prison wall is a recurring element in Jean Genet’s work. It is depicted in a sensual manner, through literary metaphors, representing vestiges of existence, relics, and even taking on a sacred dimension.

GA. Patti Smith recalls discovering Jean Genet’s writing in 1968 through The Thief’s Journal. She found a copy of the 1964 Grove Press edition at the Eighth Street Bookshop in the West Village in New York during the winter of 1968. She read it that very evening with her companion, Robert Mapplethorpe, describing it as a miraculous moment for both of them. Genet’s poetry inspired her to embark on her own writing journey and spurred Mapplethorpe’s visual artistry. Genet’s influence permeates their shared life in New York and is a recurring theme throughout her book Just Kids (2010). Patti Smith even mentions that she wrote it as a reflection to The Thief’s Journal. Her deep sensitivity to Genet’s words and poetry helped her find her own literary and poetic voice, as well as her expression of life, blending their art and lives into a seamless continuum of creativity.

Patti Smith is profoundly attuned to Genet’s linguistic craft and his ability to shine a light on human nature and marginalised or invisible spaces. They both share a deep empathy for those who, at various points in their lives, experience rejection or abandonment. The essence of their writing lies in this desire to provide these individuals a space for sublimation.

ST. In M Train (2015), Patti Smith states that all lives are precious. This sentiment, I believe, is what deeply connects her to Genet in their shared sense of empathy. She draws inspiration from and identifies with vagabonds like Genet or Rimbaud, authors who help her understand herself, embrace her uniqueness, and find comfort in her nonconformity to conventional norms.

GA. The influence of Jean Genet in Patti Smith’s life and art is evident in M Train. The book begins with her trip to French Guiana in 1981, shortly after she marries guitarist Fred “Sonic” Smith. This trip is crucial to understanding her connection to Genet’s writing. She travels there with the sole purpose of collecting stones from the Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni prison, aware of the significance of Guiana in Genet’s work. Unable to give the stones to him directly, she buries them around his grave in the Larache cemetery in Morocco in 2013. This 32-year span demonstrates her unwavering devotion to Genet’s legacy. When Patti Smith places the stones, a young boy at the cemetery gives her a rosebud after scattering petals on Genet’s grave. The stones, which she had carefully kept in a matchbox, are replaced by the rosebud. They symbolise a temporal thread interweaving life and artistic creation.

ST. Prison can be understood from various perspectives. Through literature, these two authors help us understand prison and its role in our societies. Even today, those who have been imprisoned often find it difficult to be forgiven and reintegrated into civil society. Our world needs Genet’s insights. It is essential to encounter statements like “prisoners are sacred,” and to envision transforming these individuals into flowers. Reading Genet encourages us to change our perspective and question many of our certainties. He reminds us that even in 1930, society was not unanimously in favour of imprisoning young children.

GA. Patti Smith and Jean Genet are rebels who fully embrace their rebellious spirit. They have always upheld the ultimate form of freedom: the ability to shape their own destinies. Leaving their familiar surroundings allowed them to begin pursuing their creative aspirations. This quest for freedom serves as a poetic lesson for us. It manifests as a profound sensitivity to words and a dynamic and expressive use of language that goes beyond a purely literary context. It becomes a political, artistic, and transformative act, resulting from continuous effort and expressed in various forms, such as writing a book, raising a child, or performing music.

Poetry represents the world, or at least, a unique way of perceiving it. For Genet, it might be a flower; for Patti Smith, it could be the stones from Saint Laurent. They teach us that if we possess a certain kind of freedom (almost spiritual in nature), we can shape our own destinies, no matter our starting point.

ST. Indeed, there is no moral or social judgement in the works of Jean Genet or Patti Smith. They never view people as criminals, delinquents, or individuals unworthy of attention. Genet sanctifies prisoners, criminals, and those condemned to death by granting them the dignity and respect they deserve. By writing about those often marginalised or overlooked, they give them substance and show that their life experiences are just as enriching and significant as any other. Patti Smith and Jean Genet reveal the value, beauty, and poetry in what society tends to ignore, reject, and scorn. They help us envision a world without borders. Borders are created by artificial norms, and reading these authors makes us realise how limited and constructed our view of the world is, shaped by bourgeois and capitalist society. Jean Genet and Patti Smith do not write in opposition to something; they channel their lives and creative efforts towards what moves them, what inspires them, and what they hold sacred. This perspective is evident in Genet’s two major political causes from the 1970s: advocating for African Americans, particularly through the campaigns for George Jackson and Angela Davis, and supporting Palestinians. Genet stands in solidarity with two groups whose lives are deemed less valuable, whose right to exist is denied. The empathetic lens through which Jean Genet and Patti Smith view the world helps to abolish all forms of marginalisation and encourages deep reflection on prisons and our society.