The Indigenous, the Endangered and the Kaufkaesqu

Although a Lousiana native and frequent visitor to New Orleans, I have only lived here (as an adult) for two years, so my frame of direct reference is decidedly post-Katrina/pre-spill. During those two years, I have tried to immerse myself in New Orleans history and literature, both classic and contemporary, poetry and prose, published and spoken/performed. Through attending readings and devouring recent collections like Dave Brinks' Caveat Onus and Daniel Kerwick's You Stand Alongside Desire, I feel confident in saying that the poetic responses to the multi-layered tragedy that was Katrina (personal, political, ecological, technological) have been remarkable, suffused with articulate rage, stubborn wit, nostalgic melancholy and unbridled passion. After experiencing the "Indigenous and Endangered" reading at Latter Library on Wednesday night, August 4, it appears that the poetic reckoning of the crime/crisis in the Gulf of Mexico will be no different.

The humidity of the sultry summer night was matched by the unexpected greenhouse effect inside the library, as there was some sort of problem with the air conditioning. With some 40-50 people crowded into the reserved room and outside lobby, the sauna/sweat lodge atmosphere was rather overwhelming (I can't decide whether to go in the Jewish or Lakota direction with that metaphor. Maybe Little Big Man, with Dustin Hoffman as an Indian? Then you can bring in the "small people" gaffe, and then....).

In the interests of economy, I will state a gross oversimplification, that being that there were two broad themes explored by the participating poets. Louisiana Poet Laureate Darrell Bourque, Brad Richard, Megan Burns and emcee Gina Ferrara were solidly grounded in a sense of place, whether the Gulf Coast or Acadiana, Biloxi or Gueydan, Grande Isle or Port Arthur. Jerry Ward, Roger Kamenetz, Dave Brinks and Kelly Harris all opted for a more surrealistic approach, or should I say surregionalist, to use the magically elegant term coined the Mesechabe folks. Anthropomorphized, angry wildlife (from Harris' hilarious A Pissed-off Bird) shared the stage with pre-Christian mythological references and the channeling of the two patron saints of the evening, Bob Kaufman and Franz Kafka.

Ward and Brinks both made direct reference to Kaufman, the New Orleans native and poetic genius whose work inspired the title of this blog (and whose image of the poet as a "fish with frog's eyes seems eerily prophetic in the toxic stew of the Gulf), with Brinks circulating a rare photo of Kaufman to the eager crowd. Both poets strung together rich verbal images, transporting the listener from the banality of the immediate to the mysticism of the immediate infinite.

Roger Kamenetz, meanwhile, was a passionate rabbi in denim shorts, making the case for Kafka as an appropriate voice for making some kind of order out of the chaos of the oil spill and its still-developing aftermath. Reminding us that Kafka's day job was as an investigator of industrial accidents for an insurance company, and that he often spoke through surreal dying animal characters, "like Gregor Samsa the insect, or Josephine the singing mouse: He would have felt his connection now for the endangered Ridley Sea Turtle and the oiled pelican."

In dark times, the best artists serve an alchemical role, transforming the lead of despair, rage and grief into the gold of beauty and opportunity. I would argue that the writers representing South Louisiana at the Latter Library this evening have a firm grip on the Philosopher's Stone.