These narrative poems tell the day-to-day lives of Black New Orleans and the rare magic in the culture. Vibrant with local history and color, these poems have a Black sensibility that reaches beyond boundaries, with folk sayings turned into polished verse. From Black talk to verse forms, Mona Lisa Saloy never loses sight of the African American cultural roots of her community. She makes music in verse.
| |||||||||||||||
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
Saloy's language, as well-spiced as the best gumbo, sings the upbeat blues of her city. --Nashville Scene, Sept. 29, 2005
This poet of New Orleans excels at storytelling....There's this extraordinary sense of place. It is the dominant theme: the importance and significance of place caught up in and creating identity and a sense of being. For New Orleans is a way of life a religion, a way of being, a unique and extraordinary cultural way of existing within the context of racial oppression and poverty. --Chicken Bones: A Journal
Southern poetry has long been a wonderful affair, a depiction of the heart's struggle in that life way down there, all too often a white soiree, and male to boot, with poems as rigid as bankers' suits, and change the grim subject of the day. But real poetry is so alive it sweeps along like the Mississippi in New Orleans, touching everything, its life and its will, knowable but not known. That's why poems that please deeply and endure arise from place and character and forces, forging lives not always as we want them (though sometimes!), but as they have been and are. Mona Lisa Saloy's prize-winning collection is black and female and southern and a literary event. The language is lively, the life is palpable, the observing eye is accurate and selective in distinctive ways, and the heart here is both true to the self and honest in its presentation. You don't know New Orleans if you haven't read this collection. You don't know southern poetry if you haven't read this book. You don't know the fun serious poetry can be if you haven't read Red Beans and Ricely Yours. Ms. Saloy does, yes she does. --Dave Smith, Johns Hopkins University
This poet of New Orleans excels at storytelling....There's this extraordinary sense of place. It is the dominant theme: the importance and significance of place caught up in and creating identity and a sense of being. For New Orleans is a way of life a religion, a way of being, a unique and extraordinary cultural way of existing within the context of racial oppression and poverty. --Chicken Bones: A Journal
Southern poetry has long been a wonderful affair, a depiction of the heart's struggle in that life way down there, all too often a white soiree, and male to boot, with poems as rigid as bankers' suits, and change the grim subject of the day. But real poetry is so alive it sweeps along like the Mississippi in New Orleans, touching everything, its life and its will, knowable but not known. That's why poems that please deeply and endure arise from place and character and forces, forging lives not always as we want them (though sometimes!), but as they have been and are. Mona Lisa Saloy's prize-winning collection is black and female and southern and a literary event. The language is lively, the life is palpable, the observing eye is accurate and selective in distinctive ways, and the heart here is both true to the self and honest in its presentation. You don't know New Orleans if you haven't read this collection. You don't know southern poetry if you haven't read this book. You don't know the fun serious poetry can be if you haven't read Red Beans and Ricely Yours. Ms. Saloy does, yes she does. --Dave Smith, Johns Hopkins University
From the Publisher
Winner of the 2006 PEN Oakland-Josephine Miles National Literary Award for Poetry
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Gumbo of Memories in New Orleans,
By
This review is from: Red Beans And Ricely Yours: Poems (New Odyssey Series) (New Odyssey Series) (Paperback)
Mona Lisa Saloy, formerly of New Orleans, tells a story of growing up in segregated New Orleans in her book of poetry, Red Beans and Ricely Yours. This is a slim volume packed with the flavors, sights and sounds of the author's beloved native city. Displaced by Hurricane Katrina, Saloy, a former professor at Dillard University previously resided in the Bay Area of California and recently won the Oakland Pen Award for poetry.
Written in sections with titles like Shotgun Life, Red Beans and Ricely Creole Quarters and Black Creole Love, the book yields poems that pay homage to her light, bright Creole father (My Creole Daddy) and her jet black mother (My Mother's the Daughter of a Slave), the real native foods and a way of life that are now far away memories, maybe gone forever. She humorously tells how she came by her name in Nat King Cole Babies and Black Mona Lisas and waxes philosophically about Catholic School in Parochial Product. There is a glossary of terms at the end of the book as she uses a lot of Creole/French words and phrases and Louisiana language that is foreign to the rest of the U.S. You can taste the galait (fried bread) and beignets, smell the aroma of chicory coffee and visualize the Second Line parades as you take a journey through the Seventh Ward in an hour or less. Highly recommended even for those who do not normally read poetry. Dera R. Williams APOOO BookClub
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Creole Culture Spreading,
By Achowalogen Tullier "Eagle" (Central Louisiana) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Red Beans And Ricely Yours: Poems (New Odyssey Series) (Hardcover)
Excellent collection for a Louisianaian or someone missing the Creole Culture of the state. Also, an easy trip for anyone -- learn the aspects of the Creoles in their Native Habitat.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Love is beautiful.,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Red Beans And Ricely Yours: Poems (New Odyssey Series) (New Odyssey Series) (Paperback)
Having met the author and experienced her loving heart, I discovered reading her work opened her loving heart to me, and enabled me to experience the humor, pathos, and everyday life of a remarkable community. I had to buy the book to share my experience with others.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
