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Books by Lee
Meitzen Grue
Goodbye Silver, Silver Cloud / In the Sweet Balance of the
Flesh / French Quarter Poems
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Three Poets in New Orleans /
Downtown
CD Live! On Frenchmen Street
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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
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Downtown
By Lee Meitzen Grue
Lee Grue is arguably one of the finest
practitioners of poetry in New Orleans'
storied history. These superb writs are
equal to the upwelling of jazz itself:
from Tremé street corners, to the
wayward French Quarter, to the carefree
vibes of Bywater, all the way to back o'
town; this astonishing collection speaks
from a mythic pantheon off yowls & beats
as timeless as the Crescent City
herself. "If you're missing New Orleans,
and you know what that means, you need
to read Grue's book front to back, place
by place, time by time, name by name,
everything that breaks your broken heart
and asks it to sing. A generous, loving
tribute to poetry and to New Orleans"—Dara
Wier
"Lee
Grue's work is one of the majestic
pylons that keeps New Orleans above
water, a pylon woven thickly and subtly
from the city's history. Her poetry
weaves her personal history to the five
centuries of the city's own, a fabric
stronger than the dreams of engineers.
Lee Grue holds us all on the warm open
hand of her music; she emanates the love
that raises the soul levees"—Andrei
Codrescu\ |
 |
Lee Meitzen
Grue was born in Plaquemine, Louisiana, a small town
upriver. New Orleans has been home for most of her
life. She began reading her poetry at The Quorum
Club during the early sixties. There she met
musicians Eluard Burt and Maurice Martinez
(bandleader Marty Most). Burt had just come back to
New Orleans from San Francisco, where he had been
influenced by the Beats. Eluard Burt and Lee Grue
continued to work together over many years. Burt and
his photographer wife, Kichea Burt, came home to New
Orleans from California again in the nineties, where
the three collaborated on a CD, Live! on Frenchmen
Street. Eluard Burt passed in 2007.
Kichea Burt
contributed some of the photographs in Grue's book
DOWNTOWN. During the intervening years Grue reared
children, directed The New Orleans Poetry Forum
workshop, and NEA poetry readings in the Backyard
Poetry Theater. In 1982 she began editing New Laurel
Review, an independent international literary
journal which is still published today. She has
lived downtown in the Bywater for thirty-five years.
After the flood of 2005 she began teaching fiction
and poetry at the Alvar Library, which is three
blocks from her house. Her other books are:
Trains and Other Intrusions, French Quarter Poems,
In the Sweet Balance of the
Flesh, and
Goodbye Silver, Silver Cloud, short fiction.
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* * *
The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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If you like this page consider making a donation
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Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
1950
1960
1965
1970
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1980
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2000
____ 2005
Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
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The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
/
Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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update 8 July 2008 |
