For those who miss New Orleans, for those who stared at televised images of Katrina’s wake and wondered “why?” Red Beans and Ricely Yours will be a revelation.
Poet Mona Lisa Saloy won the 2005 T.S. Eliot Prize six months before Katrina wiped out the city she lovingly portrayed in her winning manuscript, Red Beans and Ricely Yours. Far from the many neo-formalist and l-a-n-g-u-a-g-e winners of other contests that year, Saloy's is a plain spoken meander through New Orleans neighborhoods, one front porch at a time.
Turning the pages, Saloy's readers are left with the impression of time passing, seasons changing, and children growing up. The years reel by slowly, starting when Saloy's grandfather left the plantation with his step brother and came to the city. Later we see Saloy, her siblings and cousins encountering pop culture of the 1960's and 70's. We follow them to backyard barbeques and afternoon porch-sits. As in every extended family, the ancestors seem to be ever-present in the goings on, even when not directly mentioned.
Here is a selection from the poem, "French Market Morning." Reading it, one is reminded of the hungry and tired outside the Superdome. People from other parts of the country (and indeed, around the world) expressed shock over the poverty they saw, but to Saloy it is all too familiar. Here she gives us its socio-economic history in a few simple lines.
Once, only Black folks cooked, waited tables,
and swept floors in this café.
*
Aunt Jemima dolls are made in China now.
White cooks are in the kitchen,
Asian and white waiters at the tables.
*
The free food line is long and Black.
...
Its pain is older than this market. (1)
For those who remember the pre-disaster New Orleans and miss it...for those who delight in a family history lovingly portrayed, Mona Lisa Saloy's Red Beans and Ricely Yours will be a warm, familiar read. For those who stared at televised images of Katrina's wake and wondered why?, it will be a revelation.
- Saloy, Mona Lisa. Red Beans and Ricely Yours. Kirksville: Truman State University Press. 2005. p. 52.
For another home town based poet, please check out Part of the Bargain, and its author, Scott Hightower. Like Saloy, Hightower is a poet whose family-of-origin is the foundation underlying his work.
