I haven’t lived in New Orleans for more than 50 years, but when I think about the idea of “home,” it’s what first comes to mind. Whenever we visit, though, few things are what I remember. My old neighborhood superficially looks the same, but the neighbors themselves, of course, have all changed, often many times over. The French Quarter is still there, but that coffee shop catacorner to the Presbytere on Jackson Square was the Louisiana Library, where I did research on papers in high school. The building housing my father’s printing business on Gravier Street in the business district is now a condominium. How did that happen?
No, you can’t go home again. Or perhaps you can, but it’s no longer the home you remember.
“Hiraeth” is a Welsh word that translates directly into English as “longing.” As poet Siân
Killingsworth quotes in her chapbook entitled Hiraeth: Poems, it implies “a spiritual longing for a home that perhaps never was.” It’s the home that occupies our minds and hearts, the home we remember. The quotation comes from an art / video exhibition in 2022 by UK artist Jayne Lee.
To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.
Some Tuesday Readings
The hard Frost – Brenda Wineapple at The New Criterion.
Braving the Poem: Interview with Catherine Abbey Hodges – Tweetspeak Poetry.
Sayers in Paradise: From Dante to Dorothy – Seth Myers at An Unexpected Journal.
The Road He Took: A Lenten Reading of Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” – Heather Cadenhead at Rabbit Room Poetry.
“Piano,” poem by D.H. Lawrence – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.
No comments:
Post a Comment