Disparate patches

Disparate patches, forgotten fragments.

discarded and left over, folded

in a blue box at the back of the closet:

Eliza’s dress, Franklin’s shirt (ruined

by the bullet hole at Shiloh), gingham

from curtains and tablecloths, red

velvet from a stole, all fashioned

into a covering for decoration, then

warmth, then utility; lining the bottom

of the wagon headed west, protection

against mosquitoes and later Rockies

cold and ice; a corner singed that night

in the desert, the fabric absorbing

the smell of the fire the taste of the flame

the light of the stars and almost a shroud

when the fever came. A mottled collection

of scraps and repaired and ill-repaired and

not repaired pieces but it reads biography,

it reads history, it reads family.

This poem is submitted to the One Word Blog Carnival hosted by Peter Pollock, using “quilts” as the prompt. To see more posts, please visit Peter's site. The links will be live at 10 p.m. Central time tonight.

Photograph: Antique Quilt, via FlosieFloo.com

A Story of Storyville

It has been said that the state of Louisiana is comprised of three parts: North Louisiana, Cajun Louisiana and New Orleans. That’s actually an oversimplification – there’s also what are called the Florida parishes – stretching from Baton Rouge eastward to Mississippi and north of Lake Pontchartain.

My mother was born and raised in New Orleans, down in the Ninth Ward that became famous during Hurricane Katrina. I was born and raised in New Orleans, growing up in the Jefferson parish suburb of Metairie. My father was from Shreveport, in north Louisiana.

After he was discharged from the Navy at the end of World War II, my father moved to New Orleans to work. His parents weren’t exactly pleased. New Orleans had a reputation, a well deserved reputation, one that today’s Bourbon Street is only a very pale remnant of. And then he married someone from New Orleans. My grandmother got over that, but she never got over his decision to raise her grandson in the fetid swamp of iniquity called the Big Easy.

I survived. My upbringing was pretty standard Baby Boomer American Suburban.

New Orleans had a reputation for political corruption (more like a Central or South American city than a U.S. city). And it had a reputation for, well, the loosest of morals. That came from primarily from a section of town called Storyville, a legally constituted district where prostitution was allowed. There were other parts of the city where prostitution flourished, but Storyville was the epicenter. It lasted for 20 years, from 1897 to 1917, when it was closed down at the demand of the general commanding a nearby Army base after four soldiers were killed.

Very little of Storyville physically remains. It encompassed 24 square blocks west of the French Quarter and north of Canal Street. Popular legend says jazz was born there, but actually it was born all over the city.

Last fall, we were visiting New Orleans, and in a French Quarter shop near the Café Du Monde (coffee au lait and beignets!) I found two mysteries by a writer named David Fulmer. Both are set in New Orleans, and both are largely about Storyville.

I just finished reading the first one, Chasing the Devil’s Tail, published in 2003. A private detective, Valentin St. Cyr, is trying to find a serial killer who’s murdering the denizens of the brothels. It is graphic, with some rough language, and I hesitate it recommend it for those reasons. It is also a riveting story, and historical figures walk through its pages, like photographer E.J. Bellocq, jazz piano player Jelly Roll Morton, Miss Lulu (a madam), Tom Anderson, a state senator who “governed” Storyville, and Buddy Bolden, the cornet player who was instrumental in the birth of jazz.

It is extraordinarily well researched. Fulmer drew from the archives of Tulane University and scholarly historical works from LSU and the University of Alabama. He places the reader right in the middle of New Orleans history at the turn of the 20^th century, and it’s a portrayal that’s both gripping and accurate. It is also gritty and, as I said, graphic.

Part of what Fulmer does is to describe the intricate and complex racial situation. New Orleans society was highly structured, and that included the descendant of slaves and the offspring of slaveowners and slaves. The story’s detective, Valentin St. Cyr, has an Italian father and a mixed white-black mother. One thing I learned by reading this story is the level of discrimination immigrant Italians faced in New Orleans society at the time (that had largely disappeared by the time I was born, although there were vestiges).

Reading this story reminded me of some of the more sordid aspects of the culture I came from. It wasn’t all great food and Mardi Grad parades. It also reminded  me of my Southern Baptist grandmother in Shreveport, who would have been a young wife with three young children living in central Louisiana when Storyville was at its height. I understand why she was concerned.

The Faux Pas That's Now a Family Legend

In the time B.K. (before kids), my wife and I lived and worked in Houston. I was at Shell Oil, and she worked at the Houston Chronicle in the department that wrote and produced the travel sections and special editorial and advertising sections.

Her department had five or six people, including her boss. One of her co-workers, whom we’ll call Mollie to protect the identity of the innocent, had gone to college with us at LSU. And Mollie said she would be late one morning, because she had to first take her beloved but old and ailing dog to the vet to have him put to sleep.

My wife knew the people she worked with had a tendency to the cruel and cretinous. She could imagine what jokes they were going to come up with. And so that morning, before Mollie arrived, she put the fear into them. Don’t you dare make light of this, she warned. Don’t you dare make a joke about it. This is really upsetting, she loves this dog, so back off and give her some silence. Even back then, she was known for “the look” – which I had been the squirming target of many times, and our sons would be even more – the look from Mom that says don’t even think about it.

Her co-workers got the look. They promised to behave.

Later that day, my wife and Mollie would be going to get their pictures taken for passports, needed to do many of the travel stories they were being assigned. So they both planned to be a little more dressed up than usual (this was back in the days when people dressed like they were going to work in an office, because they were).

The department was working, when in walked a somber Mollie, quiet after bringing her dog to the vet and dressed for her photograph.

My wife, my poor wife who wanted to be encouraging and sympathetic, who had warned the cretins within an inch of their lives, decided to say something nice about Millie’s clothes.

“Mollie! You look dressed to kill!”

The words were out before my wife realized what she had said. There was a moment of silence. No one said a word; everyone focused on the typewriters in front of them. My wife thought she might have dodged the supreme embarrassment bullet, that everyone had missed the gigantic faux pas she had just committed – the very one she had warned the others against.

And then she saw shoulders shaking, as people tried to stifle themselves. She saw people shaking. And then it couldn’t be contained, as a huge wave of laughter erupted.

When she told me later what had happened, I tried to be sympathetic. But I was laughing too hard.

I got the look.

Two of my High Calling colleagues, Sam Van Eman at New Breed of Advertisers and Deidra Riggs at Jumping Tandem, are hosting a feature on laughter, Like Therapy Only Cheaper. To see the stories told by others, please visit Jumping Tandem for the links.

Night train

I lie in a bed of warm darkness,

hearing the wind with its errant keening,

seeking my soul as its helpmate.

The wind bows before the shrillness

of the whistle, punctuating the staccato

of metal wheel on metal rails, and

I am inside a boxed shape, rocking gently

to motion in moonlight, the wind racing

to keep pace as it washes the smells

of animals, hay, engine oil, unwashed bodies,

the bouquet I must carry to travel free,

unknown destination of no consequence.

The faint light passes over my hands;

my fingernails remain clean.

This poem is submitted to the “trains” prompt at dVerse Poets. To see more poems, please visit the site.

Night Train by Glynn2

Saturday Good Reads

A farewell to a grandmother and to a good blogging friend. A counter-thought to the “go local” craze. Two moms write about “where I’m from.” A prose poem about a breach in the moonlight, and another poem about the drama of a grey day. Paul Simon sings at the 9/11 observance in New York, and the setting totally transform an iconic song. So much good stuff, and more.

Prose

“A Novel That Parses the Inexplicable: Thorton Wilder’s ‘The Bridge of San Luis Rey’” by Danny Heitman for the Wall Street Journal.

“What’s Your Geography?” by L.L. Barkat at Seedlings in Stone.

“Honor the Sabbath,,,with Football” by Matt Appling at The Church of No People.

“This post isn’t for everybody” by Scott Couchenour at Serving Strong.

“A Better Way” by Ann Kroeker.

“Sifting Life” by Claire Burge.

“One wrong turn” by Duane Scott.

“10 Things You Need to Know About Having a Girl” and “Gana” by Travis Thrasher at The Journey is Everything.

“On Not Knowing Myself” by Ed Cyzweski at In a Mirror Dimly.

“Shrewd as Snakes and Innocent as Doves” by Bradley Moore at Shrinking Camel.

“Where I’m From” by Erin Kilmer at Together for Good.

“Where I’m From” by Corrine Cunningham at Trains, Tutus and Tea Time.

“I Know You’re Going to Say No, But –“ by Billy Coffey at What I Learned Today.

“Different, Not Less” by Kathy Richards at Katdish.

“My ‘go-local’ rant” by Jim Schmotzer for Catapault Magazine.

Poetry

“Six million” by Claudia Schoenfeld at Jaywalking the Moon.

“The Knot of Niceness” by Ajit Menon.

“Yellow Reason” by B.K. McKenzie at Signed…BKM.

“John Milton” by D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

“Breach in the Moonlight” and “Late Summer Madness” by Ed Pilolla.

“Words Empty” by Karen Eck at Karenee Art.

“April Fool’s Day” by Jim Schmotzer at Faithful Skeptic.

“The Drama of a Grey Day” and “Fruit on Grafted Branches” by Michael Dodaro at Lyric Arts Forum.

“The Changing Season” by M.J. Duggan.

“Left Standing” by Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.

“A Beard White with ELD” by Greg Sullivan at Sippican Cottage.

“Layers of Light” by Karin Fendick at Flickers of a Faithful FireFly.

Paintings and Photographs

“Still Life” and “Play Together: One” by Nancy Rosback at A Little Somethin’.

“Random Yard Stuff” and “September in the Prairie” by Tim Good at Photography by Tiwago.

“Tell me what is it you plan to do?” by Ann Kroeker.

“I wonder” by Susan Etole at Just…A Moment.

“Shadows – Shaping the Light” by Kelly Sauer for High Calling Focus.

“Landscape Abstraction,” oil on panel by Randall David Tipton at Painter’s Process.

Videos

“The Sounds of Silence” sung by Paul Simon at Ground Zero for the 9/11 Observance.

“Leap Before You Look by W.H. Auden” and “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning by John Donne,” read by Tom O’Bedlam at Spoken Verse.

“The Town of Babylon, New York and its 9/11 Observance” by Steve Gravano at Take a Look Around.

Photograph: Work (with pencils) by Nancy Rosback. Used with permission.

New Edition of "Another Hotel Room"

Last November, I reviewed Another Hotel Room: Selected Poems 1988-2008 by Steven Marty Grant. He’s foremost a city poet, and I love how he lets the sense of the city seep right through the words of his poems.

A special Grace Notes Books edition of the work has been published, edited by poet Ruth Walters. It includes several additional poems, a foreword by screenwriter and poet Harmoni McGlothlin (publisher of Grace Notes Books) and an interview with Grant at the end.

You can read my review here.

The new edition on Amazon is here.

“The Jesus Prayer” by Frederica Mathewes-Green

Years back, I spent a lot of time reading church history, works by Christian and secular scholars alike. I still have 1970s reprints of 19^th century books by Sir William Ramsay (like The Church in the Roman Empire), the two-volume History of Christianity by Yale historian Kenneth Scott Latourette, New Testament History by F.F. Bruce, Alfred Edersheim’s Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, and Peter Brown’s Augustine of Hippo. I also read a lot of the original writings of the early church fathers, like Origen and Tertullian.

It was while reading Latourette’s History that I discovered eastern Christianity in more than a cursory way. The history of Christianity in Western Europe and North and South America is largely the story of Latin, or western, Christianity and its Protestant offshoot. Eastern Christianity has a full and rich history as well – the eastern Roman Empire, the Greek and Russian Orthodox churches, the desert fathers (and mothers) and the story of the growing struggle against the spread of Islam. (For all the talk about the Western imperialistic Crusades in the Mideast, people forget that before the Crusades there were the Islamic jihads that conquered large parts of what had been the eastern (and Christian) Roman Empire.

I learned that the history of eastern Christianity was as fascinating as the history of its western counterpart. I also learned about the significant differences between the two.

More than 20 years later, while visiting our younger son at the University of Missouri, I picked up a book in the campus bookstore – Short Trip to the Edge by Scott Cairns. A professor and poet, Cairns is also a practicing Orthodox Christian believer (just consider that combination for a moment – a professor at a public university, a poet and an Orthodox believer). The book was an account of the author’s various pilgrimages to the monasteries of Mount Athos in Greece.

Suddenly, Cairns had me in the weeds of Orthodox belief and practice. My reading from years before helped my understanding. But I had to read the book slowly. Because much of what it contains was alien to my western Christian mind. I thoroughly enjoyed the book – even if I wasn’t quite prepared to venerate an icon with a kiss.

One spiritual practice associated with Orthodox Christianity is “the Jesus Prayer,” and it is the subject of Frederica Mathewes-Green’s The Jesus Prayer. It is a deceptively simply prayer and practice – the repetition of “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.” An acceptable variant adds “a sinner” after “me.”

Mathewes-Green, the author of several books on Orthodox Christianity, explores the history of the prayer (arising among the desert fathers) and then provides an extensive step-by-step explanation of what it is, how it works and the training and practice that’s needed to pray the prayer. Much of this explanation is in the form of an extended question-and-answer section that becomes a kind of mediation itself. (And whether the Questions are her own writing device or real questions that people have asked, I found that she used several questions that I had about the prayer and practice.)

Along the way, Mathewes-Green explains the prayer’s place in “remedial awe,” or learning how immense and majestic God truly is; how transformative the prayer can be (I loved her insight that “everyone wants to be transformed but nobody wants to change”); how you will gradually silence the “inner chatter” that crowds prayer out; and how charity needs to be considered in the contest of personal relationships.

For those of us of the Protestant persuasion, the idea of a repetitive prayer – praying the same words over and over – sounds rather Roman Catholic with its “Our Fathers” and “Hail Marys.” Yet as Mathewes-Green explains it, this short prayer is a significant spiritual practice, one requiring guidance and discipline.