Books by Lee Meitzen Grue: 

Goodbye Silver, Silver Cloud   In the Sweet Balance of the Flesh  French Quarter Poems  Three Poets in New Orleans

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Introduction

French Quarter Poems

By Lee Meitzen Grue

Where is the French Quarter of the poems? Geographically, it is the area of New Orleans, bounded by Canal St. and Esplanade, North Rampart and the River; it is contained on a map, a place referred to by boundaries. There is no gradual sliding into the Quarter, you go there to find something you cannot find elsewhere.

But what is it you visit? A collection of old buildings, a street of strip shows and barkers, fine restaurants, peeling plaster and garbage in the streets? There must be something more. It is a mystique, an ambiance as indefinable as a scent you once smelled and long to smell again. There  is a feeling of leisure that creeps into your bones with the damp; the luxury of "don't have to get up in the morning," a slow sensuality that leaves you in bed longing for more of something good.

For Quarterites it is the great love affair.

Light and music pour from doorways into the street, here the carnival and there the quiet of candlelight. A celebration of flesh, and an acknowledgement of the spirit.

The faces of the buildings are constantly being repainted. They are ladies past middle-age, settled into their flesh, who must constantly repair the small bits of their maquillage that flake away. The gas lights are kind to these ladies of a certain age, still bright in their layers of paint.

The faces of people, too, seem more vivid here. A trick of Southern light, perhaps, the sun up when it should be set or after a rain. People walk in crowds wearing their visible differences revealed as children reveal themselves to a tolerable mother who does not reject or punish, but smiles indulgently. It is when they go beyond her limits that they must comb their hair, quiet their clothes, and drink their spirits in closets.

If a place is mentioned in this book that you find in a guide book, remember it is not as represented there. These are vivid recollections of one time; poems as personal as the prints of my fingers.

Source: French Quarter Poems (1979) Long Measure Press