|
Books by Lee
Meitzen Grue
Goodbye Silver, Silver Cloud / In the Sweet Balance of the
Flesh / French Quarter Poems
/
Three Poets in New Orleans /
Downtown
CD Live! On Frenchmen Street
* * *
* *
A
Tribute to Lee
Meitzen Grue
New Orleans Poet
By
Rudolph Lewis
In late 1983 or
early 1984, I met Lee Meitzen Grue, along with Yusef Komunyakaa,
after a reading they gave at the University of New Orleans.
Actually, it was more or less through Yusef, or as a result of
my association with Yusef, that I got to know Lee. For he was
part of her New Orleans Poetry Forum, which met on a weekly or
bi-weekly basis. Members and guests read their poems and
participants would comment. It was for these sessions I wrote
and read my first poems. Lee knew Yusef was working with me,
teaching me something about poetry writing and his own writing
approach and how to judge the quality of poetry. One of the most
charming women I have ever met, Lee gave me further
encouragement.
|
 |
As editor of the New Laurel Review,
Lee also called on me to assist as a contributing
editor. This experience was quite significant. Not only
were several of my essays and poems published in New
Laurel Review, I also through Lee met the great Russian
poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko and interviewed him. He had
been one of my favorite poets since I began my study of
literature with Dr. Max Wilson back in the mid-70s.
After I met Yevtushenko, whose performance I greatly
admired, I was still impressed by the subtleties of his
writing.
Though I remained in New Orleans a
couple of years during the mid-80s, I have kept in
contact with Lee over the last two decades and visited
her several times subsequently at her Lesseps home. I am
very fond of her and her family. She is a great person
and a wonderful writer and poet.
photo above: Rudy
reading a poem in Lee's backyard theater. I was slim and
hungry then. |
Included here in this Tribute are several
newspaper clippings that will provide more background material
from a New Orleans point of view. In addition, I have included
five poems in which Lee takes a unique perspective on individual
New Orleans writers and entertainers who have affected her
sensibility of New Orleans' rhythm and blues. These are
wonderful poetic portraits. There are two additional poems:
"Signed Poem" and "Miles." I especially like
this portrait of Miles. For the poem concludes that a man's
artistry is far greater than his idiosyncrasies or his madness.
* * * * *
New Orleans Poetry Forum
Fellowship Award Literature a la Russe
* * * *
* Books by Lee Meitzen Grue:
Goodbye Silver, Silver Cloud In the Sweet Balance of the
Flesh French Quarter Poems
Three Poets in New Orleans
* * * * *
My own papers are at
The Newcomb Center for Research on Women.
Susan Tucker is the archivist there. She's a wonderful person.
She would give you good advice. The other papers which have to
do with New Laurel Review are at Xavier. Lester Sullivan would
be the person to contact there. Good luck and a wonderful
Christmas. Take pride in your work. It's important to many
people. all best, Lee
* * *
* *
* *
* * *
|
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.
*
* * * *
 |
Blacks in Hispanic Literature: Critical Essays
Edited by
Miriam DeCosta-Willis
Blacks in Hispanic Literature is a
collection of fourteen essays by scholars and
creative writers from Africa and the Americas.
Called one of two significant critical works on
Afro-Hispanic literature to appear in the late
1970s, it includes the pioneering studies of
Carter G. Woodson and
Valaurez B. Spratlin, published in the 1930s, as
well as the essays of scholars whose interpretations
were shaped by the Black aesthetic. The early
essays, primarily of the Black-as-subject in Spanish
medieval and Golden Age literature, provide an
historical context for understanding 20th-century
creative works by African-descended, Hispanophone
writers, such as Cuban
Nicolás Guillén and Ecuadorean poet, novelist,
and scholar
Adalberto Ortiz, whose essay analyzes the
significance of Negritude in Latin America. This
collaborative text set the tone for later
conferences in which writers and scholars worked
together to promote, disseminate, and critique the
literature of Spanish-speaking people of African
descent. . . .
Cited by a
literary critic in 2004 as "the seminal study in the
field of Afro-Hispanic Literature . . . on which
most scholars in the field 'cut their teeth'."
|
* *
* * *
|
Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in
America
By Melissa V.
Harris-Perry
According to the
author, this society has historically exerted
considerable pressure on black females to fit into one
of a handful of stereotypes, primarily, the Mammy, the
Matriarch or the Jezebel. The selfless
Mammy’s behavior is marked by a slavish devotion to
white folks’ domestic concerns, often at the expense of
those of her own family’s needs. By contrast, the
relatively-hedonistic Jezebel is a sexually-insatiable
temptress. And the Matriarch is generally thought of as
an emasculating figure who denigrates black men, ala the
characters Sapphire and Aunt Esther on the television
shows Amos and Andy and Sanford and Son, respectively.
Professor Perry
points out how the propagation of these harmful myths
have served the mainstream culture well. For instance,
the Mammy suggests that it is almost second nature for
black females to feel a maternal instinct towards
Caucasian babies.
As for the source
of the Jezebel, black women had no control over their
own bodies during slavery given that they were being
auctioned off and bred to maximize profits. Nonetheless,
it was in the interest of plantation owners to propagate
the lie that sisters were sluts inclined to mate
indiscriminately.
|
 |
* *
* * *
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)
* *
* * *
Ancient African Nations
* * * * *
If you like this page consider making a donation
* * * * *
Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
1950
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
____ 2005
Enjoy!
* * * * *
The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
/
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
/
Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery
* *
* * *
The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
* * * * *
* *
* * *
update 8 July 2008
|
