Odd Bits of Life in New Orleans

Odd Words April 18, 2013

World Book Night, the international program of free book distribution to encourage people to read, is next Tuesday, April 23 and Odd Words is again a participant. The problem is, I haven’t figured out the where and how yet. Odd Word’s title is The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. Goodreads says “Told in a series of vignettes stunning for their eloquence, this memoir (?) is Sandra Cisneros’s greatly admired story of a young girl’s growing up in the Latino section of Chicago.” And I haven’t read it yet. I’m going to pluck one off the top of the box when I get it Thursday night. If all else fails me, I’ll put my table up on Frenchman Street just outside the Apple Barrel again, which worked well last year.

Today is Bob Kaufman‘s birthday. Go check some poems on PoetryFoundation.org. (Poets.org lists no poems.)

& so to this listings…

& Thursday is a busy day for The New Orleans Public Library. You can view the full week’s events here:

• NOPL continues its El día de los niños/El día de los libros (Children’s Day/Book Day) program with a story time for toddlers featuring Asia at the Hubbell Branch, 10:30-11:30 a.m. This program is a celebration every day of children, families, and reading that culminates yearly on April 30. The celebration emphasizes the importance of literacy for children of all linguistic and cultural backgrounds.
• NOPL also hosts Create Black Out Poetry at the Latter Branch at 4 p.m. This is a teen poetry/craft celebrating National Poetry Month. We will be reading poetry, making poetry, listening to music, light refreshments and giveaways.
• At 5:30 pm the Norman Mayer Branch of NOPL hosts Writing Workshops Led by Youths upstairs in the teen area. Encouraging creative arts exploration through reading, engaging discussions, and group activities. Youth ages 12-17 are invited! Group limited to 15 participants.
• At 6:30 p.m. NOPL’s Algiers Branch continues its series Pass the Word Poetry Workshop. “Stand Up, Look Up, Speak Up: How to Present Your Work in Public” presented by Valentine Pierce. Sponsored by Poets & Writers, Inc.

Tonight at 6 p.m. Octavia Books hosts a presentation and booksigning with Mary Ann Sternberg celebrating the release of her new book, RIVER ROAD RAMBLER: A Curious Traveler along Louisiana’ s Historic Byway, and the the new edition of her much celebrated ALONG THE RIVER ROAD: Past and Present on Louisiana’s Historic Byway. Sternberg has spent over two decades exploring this historic corridor, uncovering its intriguing and often – under-appreciated places. In River Road Rambler, she presents fifteen sketches about sites along this scenic route. From familiar stops, such as the National Hansen’s Disease Center Museum at Carville and the perique tobacco area of St. James Parish to lesser – known attractions such as Our Lady of Lourdes grotto in the town of Convent and the Colonial Sugars Historic District,

& Thursay at 7:30 p.m. 17 Poets! is in temporary quarters at 828 Lesseps St. in the Bywater this Thursday due to sewage and water construction in the building. Featured are y Kelly Davio, Kit Robinson and Freddi Evans followed by the open mic. Davio is Managing Editor of The Los Angeles Review, Associate Editor of Fifth Wednesday Journal, and a reviewer for Women’s Review of Books. She is a Pushcart nominee whose work has been honored in Best New Poets. Robinson is the author of The Messianic Trees: Selected Poems, 1976–2003 (Adventures in Poetry, 2009), Train I Ride (BookThug, 2009), The Crave (Atelos, 2002) and 16 other books of poetry. Williams Evans is an alumna of Tougaloo College, Tougaloo, Mississippi where, as a music major, she began studying traditional African music on a study-travel to the University of Ghana at Accra. Evans is the award-winning author of three historically-based children’s books: A Bus of Our Own (2001), The Battle of New Orleans: the Drummer’s Story (2005), and Hush Harbor:Praying in Secret (2008). Evans latest book, Congo Square: African Roots in New Orleans, received the 2012 Humanities Book of the Year Award from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities.

& Tonight at 9 p.m. at the Shadowbox Theater there will be a whole “Lot o’ Shakespeare”!, the New Orleans Premiere of Tim Mooney’s hit one-man show. One monologue from every Shakespeare play performed entirely at random based on the spin of a Bingo cage! Prizes! Prizes! Prizes! This will be Mooney’s first ever New Orleans appearance… (Not counting the Cat’s Meow!) Four performances, Thurs, 4/18-Sun, 4/21.

& Friday at 5:30 p.m. Rod Dreher discusses and signs her book, The Little Way of Ruthie Leming at the Garden District Book Shop. The Little Way of Ruthie Leming follows Rod Dreher, a Philadelphia journalist, back to his hometown of St. Francisville, Louisiana (pop. 1,700) in the wake of his younger sister Ruthie’s death. When she was diagnosed at age 40 with a virulent form of cancer in 2010, Dreher was moved by the way the community he had left behind rallied around his dying sister, a schoolteacher. He was also struck by the grace and courage with which his sister dealt with the disease that eventually took her life. In Louisiana for Ruthie’s funeral in the fall of 2011, Dreher began to wonder whether the ordinary life Ruthie led in their country town was in fact a path of hidden grandeur, even spiritual greatness, concealed within the modest life of a mother and teacher.

Friday night at 6 p.m. Maple Street Book Shop Bayou St. John presents the next installment of The Diane Tapes features [Field][White][Burns] reading from their work. Jared White was born in Boston and lives in Brooklyn. He is the author of the chapbook YELLOWCAKE, published as part of the Narwhal anthology from Cannibal Books in 2009. His recent poems have appeared in Sink Review, Esque, Coconut, Harp & Altar, We Are So Happy To Know Something, and in audiovisual format on the Flying Object web site. He is the co-owner of Berl’s Brooklyn Poetry Shop and the co-curator of Yardmeter Editions. Farrah Field is the author of Rising(Four Way Books, 2009) and the chapbook Parents (Immaculate Disciples Press, 2011). Her poems and essays have appeared in many publications including Sixth Finch, Ploughshares, Harp & Altar, Lit, Typo, La Petite Zine, and Drunken Boat. Two of her poems were selected by Kevin Young for The Best American Poetry 2011. Megan Burns edits the poetry magazine, Solid Quarter. Her book Memorial + Sight Lines was published in 2008 by Lavender Ink. She has four chapbooks, Frida Kahlo: I am the poem and Framing a Song (Trembling Pillow Press),irrational knowledge (Fell Swoop press) and a city/ bottle boned (Dancing Girl Press).

& Saturday morning for Story Time at Maple Street Book Shop’s Uptown location Miss Maureen will read The Steadfast Tin Soldier by Hans Christian Andersen, retold by Cynthia Rylant, and illustrated by Jen Corace. 11:30 am.

& Saturday at Garden District Book Shop at 1 p.m. Kerry Dunn discusses and signs his book, Joe Peace. Twenty years ago, Joe Peace was an ace homicide investigator for the Austin Police Department, until his penchant for cocaine and a disastrous affair with his partner Cassie buries him at the bottom of the APD’s burnout brigade. When the psychotic founder of the most powerful drug cartel convinces Joe the cash is greener on the other side of the fence, Joe becomes a player in the drug scene, buys a mansion, and collects beautiful coeds like butterflies, but the party ends when new details of Cassie’s death surface, opening wounds long scarred over.

Saturday at Maple Street Book Shop’s Bayou St. John location Christopher Schaberg, Assistant Professor of Contemporary Literature and Critical Theory at Loyola, will be reading and signing his book, The Textual Life of Airports at 6 p.m. . This is a book about airport stories. It is about common narratives of airports that circulate in everyday life, and about the secret stories of airports—the strange or hidden narratives that do not always fit into standard ideas of these in-between places. Tales of near disaster, endless delays, dramatic weather shifts, a lost bag that suddenly appears-such stories are familiar accounts of a place that seems to thrive on and recycle its own mythologies. You can read an interview with Schaberg at Press Street’s Room 220 blog.

& Sunday from 3-6 p.m. Garden District Book Shop hosts Judy Conner discussing and signing her book, Southern Fried Divorce: The After Party. The shop’s website mentions “free booze and nabs” and I’m not certain what nabs are at a divorce celebration party. No mention if they’ll put the plywood on the pool table for dancing. Her new books brings more true stories of outrageous everyday life in the Big Easy from Judy Conner’s, author of the much-loved bestseller Southern Fried Divorce (which actor John Goodman called “more fun than a box of glue-huffing monkeys on St. Peter and Bourbon”). I might just have to stop by for a nab but watch out for glue-huffing monkeys.

& The new Sunday show from Spoken Word New Orleans is Poetry and Paint Brushes. Spoken Word artists perform as a resident artists paints the crowd and performers. At 6 p.m. at Special Tea, 4337 Banks Street. No longer at the Bayou Road location.

& On the second, fourth, and fifth Sunday of each month, Jenna Mae hosts poets and spoken-word readers at 8:00 p.m. at the Fair Grinds Coffee House on 3133 Ponce de Leon St.

& Susan Larson, the former book editor of the former Times-Picayune newspaper and member of the National Book Critics Circle hosts The Reading Life on WWNO (89.9 FM) on Tuesdays at 1:30 p.m. She features interviews with authors of local and national interest.

& The Lunch ‘n’ Lit Book Club will meet at the Rosa Keller Library Tuesday, April 23rd, at 12:30 pm to discuss How Lincoln Learned to Read: Twelve Great Americans and the Educations that Made Them by Daniel Wolff.

& Sarah Carr will be discussing and signing her book Hope Against Hope: Three Schools, One City, and the Struggle to Educate America’s Children Wednesday at 6 pm. at Maple Street Book Shop’s Uptown location. Hope Against Hope takes place in a New Orleans ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, but even more important in journalist Sarah Carr’s story is a highly unnatural disaster: American poverty. Carr’s book takes an intimate look at the real people—students, principals, teachers—affected by “school reform,” a slippery term that means privatization, a weakening of teachers’ unions and elected school boards, and an increasing dependence on testing data.

& Wednesday there is a weekly poetry reading hosted at the Neutral Ground Coffee House at 9 p.m.

& Wednesday night at UNO Elana Bell will read her poetry 8 p.m. at the UNO Fine Arts Gallery (on Harwood Drive, across from the Liberal Arts Building). The reading will be followed by a booksigning and wine and cheese reception. This event is free and open to the public. Elana’s first collection of poetry, Eyes, Stones (LSU Press 2012) is the winner of the 2011 Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets