Umpteen Ways of Looking at a Possum: Critical and Creative Responses to Everette Maddox [Paperback]

Grace Bauer (Editor), Julie Kane (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 15, 2006

Umpteen Ways of Looking at a Possum, edited by Julie Kane and Grace Bauer examines and celebrates the life and work of legendary New Orleans poet Everette Maddox. Maddox, who taught poetry at University of Alabama, Xavier University, and University of New Orleans, is known to many as the organizer of a long-running series of open mike poetry readings at New Orleans Maple Leaf Bar. His own poetry appeared in The Paris Review and other literary magazines before his untimely death in 1989. Among his poetry collections are The Thirteen Original Poems (1976), The Everette Maddox Song Book (1982), Bar Scotch (1988), and the posthumous collections American Waste (1993) and Rette s Last Stand (2004). Archival collections devoted to Maddox are located at Xavier University of Louisiana and the Historic New Orleans Collection. Editors Julie Kane and Grace Bauer knew Maddox and his circle, and have gathered together an impressive list of writers for this book. Among them are Martha McFerren, Ralph Adamo, Maxine Cassin, Peter Cooley, Louis Gallo, Ellen Gilchrist, and a host of others connected with the New Orleans literary scene.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"In all, this compilation is a fascinating way of portraying Maddox through the eyes of his friends, students, and loved ones."

--David Kunian for Offbeat Magazine

"Practically every writer who lives in or once lived in New Orleans and had any contact at all with Everette Maddox has contributed something to this volume that is a loving memorial to him." --Mary McKay for The New Orleans Times-Picayune

"That he was talented we knew, that he was probably doomed we suspected, but . . . a group of fervent admirers . . . would not let him go obscurely into that good night." --Dwight Eddins for Alabama Writers' Forum

From the Author

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Product Details

• Paperback: 318 pages
• Publisher: Xavier Review Press (October 15, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1883275164
• ISBN-13: 978-1883275167
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,338,910 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Appointed to a two-year term as Louisiana Poet Laureate in May 2011, Julie Kane is a native of Boston and a longtime resident of Louisiana. Her most recent poetry collection, JAZZ FUNERAL, won the 2009 Donald Justice Poetry Prize, judged by David Mason. RHYTHM & BOOZE was selected by Maxine Kumin as a National Poetry Series winner and was one of four finalists for the 2005 Poets' Prize. Kane is the co-editor, with Grace Bauer, of the anthology UMPTEEN WAYS OF LOOKING AT A POSSUM: CRITICAL AND CREATIVE RESPONSES TO EVERETTE MADDOX (a finalist for the 2007 Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance Book Award in Poetry). She is also an associate editor of the Longman Southern literature anthology, VOICES OF THE AMERICAN SOUTH. The nonfiction Vietnam memoir that she co-authored with Kiem Do, COUNTERPART, was a 1999 History Book Club Featured Alternate. A former George Bennett Fellow in Writing at Phillips Exeter Academy, New Orleans Writer-in-Residence at Tulane University, and Fulbright Scholar at Vilnius Pedagogical University (Lithuania), she teaches creative writing and American poetry at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Remembering Rette, August 1, 2010

By 

Melissa J. Delbridge "Azalea" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Umpteen Ways of Looking at a Possum: Critical and Creative Responses to Everette Maddox (Paperback)

I loved this book and am grateful to the editors and contributors. Reading it, I remembered the time I spent with Rette as a student and as a friend in Tuscaloosa. There was so much sweetness and greatness about him, and this collection captures it all.