Poems for New Orleans

(Paperback)

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"Poems for New Orleans" begins by tracing events in the Crescent City's early history, such as the Battle of New Orleans in 1815 and its rise in the 19th century as an important trading centre, but much of the book's focus is on the impact of Hurricane Katrina in the late summer of 2005 and the storm's calamitous aftermath, when government at all levels failed to alleviate the suffering of victims, through ineptitude, malice, indifference and greed. The narratives in the book tell a series of interconnected stories, past and present, which seeks to discover the essence of New Orleans.At the core of the book is the multi-century story of the Lebage family, of Haitian origin, beginning with Lemoine Lebage, who fought with Andrew Jackson's forces in the Battle of New Orleans and then set down roots in New Orleans, and extending to five generations later, when Grace Lebage, a singer and poet, struggles to restore her life in the Crescent City after Hurricane Katrina has wrecked her ancestral home. Although the enormous and unfinished tragedy of Katrina suffuses "Poems for New Orleans", its words shine forth in celebration of a great American city that reveals its indomitability, its creativity, its sense of humour and good times, and its multicultural vitality and beauty in the face of every adversity and setback.

Reviews

"Ed Sanderspoet, Pentagon levitator, classics scholar, founding member of the Fugsis a political force in Woodstock, New York."
Hendrik Hertzberg, The New Yorker

No poet today writes history better than Ed Sanders. From the Duke of Orleans fragile grouping of houses in 1718, to wealth and heights with Mardi Gras and fun without guilt, to the storm of Katrina, the bard of our continent gives us the truth with these poems and songs.
Joanne Kyger, author of About Now: Collected Poems

Sanders the poet-maestro of American history excels his own lyrical genius with the truth beams he sends flashing in Poems for New Orleans.
Michael McClure, author of Scratching the Beat Surface

A magisterial suite of poems tracing the Crescent City from its founding in 1718 through the ravages of Hurricane Katrina, Poems for New Orleans is a vertical history in verse, recalling Charles Olsons Gloucester and William Carlos Williamss Paterson."
Nina Shengold, Chronogram Magazine

The bad handling of Hurricane Katrina is a central point of this book, but more importantly, Sanders also sheds light on the after-effects and the suffering it imposed on those who were displaced. This type of investigative poetics is not new territory for Sanders [H]e has put his best foot forward to cover one of Americas greatest tragedies. The book is interspersed with sharp, quick-witted shorter works that glue the larger poems into a taught fabric; the shorter poems represent an alternate poetic frequency and outlook that allows the larger, more musical poems to mesh exceptionally well. Poems for New Orleans provides a much-deserved helping of poetic justice.
Darrin Daniel, Rain Taxi

Ed Sanders, in his Poems for New Orleans, leads us at one point to imagine the goddess Athena reappearing to intercede for yet another place where something has shamed justice. The work is, as he says, a prayer for the victims of this injustice. But it is also a Prophetic Book, an eloquent cry of righteous indignation. And it is an Apologia for the Polis, a celebration of the Queen City, the Fertile Crescent, with its richness of culture, history and humanity. In producing this extraordinary work, Sanders has combined the patient labors of the engaged historian with the creative inspiration of the poet. The Poems enlighten the reader about the thick particularities of real, lived history, especially through the narrative ribbon of the deeply moving Lebage family history that runs through the work. At the same time, they enchant the reader with the magic of the place, so that one can well imagine the visionary Blake crossing paths with the Voodoo Priestess Marie Laveau. Sanders brings to the scene of the crime and the dramatic landscape diverse skills, ranging from those of an Investigative Poet to those of a Rhapsodic Historian. The Poems reveal that he has gained a deep and empathetic knowledge of the city's history, its people, and its complex personality, that he has intently listened to the whispering of its secret mind.
John P. Clark, Gregory F. Curtin Distinguished Professor in Humane Letters and the Professions at Loyola University New Orleans

Author Bio

Edward Sanders has been in the public eye since the early 1960s, when his convention-shattering underground poetry publications served as an important bridge between Beat Generation bohemia and the rising social and political Counterculture. His band The Fugs, formed in 1965, infused a spirit of literate anarchism into the classic era of rock and roll, and Sanders himself became a noteworthy figurehead for the hippie movement, appearing on the cover of Life magazine in 1966. Since that time, he has continued to write and record material informed by the spirit of that era. He has won a number of poetry fellowships, including a Guggenheim Fellowship in poetry; a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in poetry; and an American Book Award for his Collected Poems, 1961-1985.