Louisiana Books

I have been researching performance poetry as a historical predecessor to Slam poetry. I think I found something better than slam, and it is performance poetry. I have to recommend this CD of the someone who is called the original performance poet, Hedwig Gorski, because she made up the term to publicize what she started doing in the late 1970s. There is a great book out linked in this review that shows how she started with what she called in a recent interview as "neo-verse drama" coupled with "conceptual art." You don't hear about literary artists doing anything this new and daring anymore. Here is a link to the book if you want to read about something so bizarre and unexpected, that it will spin your ideas about poetry around 360 degrees.
Intoxication: Heathcliff on Powell Street
The band work like that in the "Clown" CD comes after the performance poetry theater events archived in the book. If anything, it sounds much more radio friendly and even entertaining. She comes "as close to singing as anyone can without really singing," a playwright wrote of Gorski vocals. It is really something that should be part of every slam poet's collection. Has anyone been thinking that all the slam poets are beginnig to sound the same? How about Def Poets? Are they all beginnning to deliver the same style of poems and voice inflections? I think so. That is why performance poetry is so much better than slam. Especially the one and only original performance poet, so-called, on the CD. Gotta hear it and own it before the CDs disappear. Really a treat.

This book focuses on domestic life in the South during the period of European settlement. It makes clear that many of the white farm families would not have survived had they not had the cooperation and instruction in practical living techniques generously provided by their native neighbors. I was amused at how many of the "Southern" traditions of food and cooking that I grew up with are really Native American traditions that were adopted by the settlers. Gray is an entertaining writer who has gathered many facts that may appear trivial, but which help to develop a detailed picture of what life was like on the frontier when the frontier was east of Atlanta.

This book gives a really good insight into how Mercy Ministries came to be founded and many amazing stories of God's abundant provision for this ministry. It's a very encouraging read with amazing testimonies of what a difference God has made in the lives of young women who have been through the program and experienced God's incredible Mercy

Renza tackles a cognitive-philosophiocal issue herein that few would have the learned energy to engage. As well, the book enlightens the work of Poe and of Stephens in a way that avid readers of either will appreciate.

This book is one of the best I've ever read. It relates the power of the presidency to the Suez Crisis. This book is a good read and perfect for research on this topic.

I know that I always review books on how to draw manga, but I also like to read other books as well. So hear me out on this guys.This five chapter book is about the author Jennifer Paul's family. Even though she is talking about the events of the family, this story is actually about her grandfather Reverend Joe Paul and his wife Carrie. This 89 page bio is about what Rev Paul went through in the early 1900's and how he grew up from an abandoned unwanted child to becoming one of the oldest living preachers in Port Allen, Louisiana and three parishes. This book is very compelling, sad, and uplifting. I believe alot of people can relate to this book who has gone through any hardship in life, or who hasn't been through certain circumstances in thier life.
The chapters of this book includes:
Chapter one: A tragic beginning
Chapter two: Carrie's hope for a better life
Chapter three: The scandal
Chapter four: Things are not always what they seem
Chapter five: A Test of faith
I would definitely recommend getting this book if you are one of those people who loves a short to the point biography, or someone who just doesn't like reading long novel books. This book is a must buy!

Covers both World Wars, segregation, Communism, literature, politics, agriculture and everything else for both black and white perspectives. Documented with extensive footnotes, critical essay on authorities, and solid index.

This book is, in effect, two books in one. The first section is a dual-language selection of John Owen's Latin epigrams, which are by turns laugh-out-loud funny and vulgar and oddly pious. My Latin is very rusty, but it is a pleasure to read the Latin and compare it to the translations, which are sometimes faithful to the letter of the original, but always faithful to the artistic spirit of the Owen's poems.

The second section is a playful re-telling of Spenser's Faerie Queene. This section is even better than the first, both in terms of readerly enjoyment, and scholarly interest. I'm planning a class on re-tellings, and this book is certain to be on the syllabus. The outrageous fun Slavitt has with Spenser's epic in this long poem of his is a joy to encounter.

So, get thee hence and purchase this fine volume!

Years ago a good friend of mine, who knew Voegelin personally, recommended that I read him. It was not until recently that I delved into his works, motivated mostly by the increase in fundamentalism and falsified consciousness in U.S. society (and elsewhere). Voegelin's own works are daunting in their sheer volume, but I have found Franz's little book a superb accounting of the most essential parts of Voegelin's thought, at least of the parts that are of most interest to me. Franz writes clearly and captures well the depth and expanse of Voegelin's panoramic mindset.
If I can register one minor complaint: though Marxism as a closed ideology has its problems, I would disagree with Franz's judgment (in a footnote on p. 116) that "the ideology has NEVER had much going for it in terms of empirical support or theoretical cogency." Despite the weakness of its philosophical underpinnings, I believe that as an analytical tool for understanding what's happening in today's economy, Marxism still has much worth. And that is precisely its appeal, not some hankering after an illusory communistic paradise.
But this is a minor complaint. Franz makes Voegelin highly accessible to people who will never be able to navigate the ocean of his collected works, and I recommend his book highly to anyone who wants to understand not only Voegelin but the radical nature of the crisis of our small-minded society.

Ms. Cherry's *Exiled Heart* deserves any accolade one can muster: moving, extraordinary, strikingly intelligent, and--yes--heartbreaking. Ms. Cherry's meditations upon fate's intrusions into love are a balance of braininess and passion.

Steve Vivian