It must be a phenomenon of age, but as I’ve gotten older, my visits to my hometown of New Orleans have become less frequent. At the same time, my emotional ties have become stronger, evidenced by the growing number of New Orleans-themed Facebook groups I’ve joined.
Most of the reason for less frequent visits is family. My childhood was highlighted by the sheer number of relatives, entirely from my mother’s large family, who lived there. Now they’re gone, scattered to cities, towns, and cemeteries all over the South. I have a single cousin left living in New Orleans.
No, you can’t go home again, except in your memory. Poet Bruce Lawder discovered that when he visited the town where he grew up. The place is still there, but it presents a sense of dislocation. Most things have changed; even those that seem the same aren’t quite the way you remember them. (I sympathize; the backyard of the house where I grew up has shrunken dramatically from what I remember as a child.)
Lawder did what poets do; he wrote poems. His newest collection, Breakwater Rock: Poems,” is comprised mostly of poems he wrote before and after his hometown visit.
Some Thursday Readings
“Fame is a fickle food,” poem by Emily Dickenson – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.
Collage: Unwrapping Gifts from the Quiet – Ethany Rohde at Tweetspeak Poetry.
Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction – Dean Flower at The Hudson Review on Henry James.
The Art of the Critic – Nick Ripatrazone at The Metropolitan Review.
“No, Thank You, John,” poem by Christina Rossetti – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.
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