WIT, WISDOM, AND MOSTLY TRUE STORIES

In my last blog, I talked about the writings of aspiring authors who had published some of their memoirs written in a Life Writing Class taught by Kim Graham at the New Iberia Library in New Iberia, Louisiana.  The book, Let Me Tell You A Story, has been selling like a Dave Robicheaux novel since its publication — it seems that the town of New Iberia turned out for a recent signing at the New Iberia Library, and class members may be doing a second printing.

Instructor Kim Graham has been teaching a similar class sponsored by the University of Louisiana at Lafayette since the 1990’s, which was originally taught by Joan Steer, an English teacher, and the late Ida Neezy who worked at Lafayette General Hospital.  This class has also published a volume of their reminiscences entitled Wit, Wisdom, and Mostly True Stories and can be ordered by clicking on the title.

The book includes memories of Hurricane Betsy, World War II experiences, Guatemalan adventures, travels in the Mideast, a family camping trip, and many other life experiences written after students received instruction in dialogue, character development, and other writing techniques.  Kim Graham calls her class members “incredible authors.  Through humor or tears, a story will emerge… with references to the past, ones that will be recognized by family or place…”

The authors include teachers, legislators, doctors, geologists, farmers, and people representing other vocations.  Many of the stories feature photographs, even paintings, to illustrate their memoirs.  The biographies of the writers at the conclusion of their stories are as intriguing as the stories themselves.

 

I was drawn to a story entitled “Texas Plumes” by Jean Sellmeyer Smith who included a poem at the conclusion of her vignette.  Her story is filled with sensual, concrete detail; e.g., her description of an old-time country meal prepared by her grandmother: “Three meats – clove-studded ham, crispy fried chicken, a pot roast with smooth dark brown gravy – every kind of fruit and vegetable in season, or in the storm cellar …bread and butter pickles, crisp and cold from a big clay crock – sweet tea in a frosty pitcher – fresh hot bread topped with home-churned butter molded in the glass swan mold…and from the wild muscadine cascading high over the back fence, a grape jelly as clear and deep purple as a brilliant amethyst…”  This story evoked memories of my Grandmother Nell’s country spreads that included plump butterbeans, sliced Big Boy tomatoes and cucumbers, and fried cornbread.

As I’ve written many poems and stories based on my life experiences, I can appreciate the feeling of “closure” a writer sometimes gets when he/she has spun a vignette that “places value on a moment in time,” as Kim says.  There’s something cathartic about penning a memoir.

Life Writing Classes provide a kind of creative synergy for students who long for self-expression, and some of the classes have been around for four decades.  However, in the last few years, advances in printing technology have allowed the publication of memoirs to burgeon — valuable life stories are being preserved for many generations.

Brava Kim Graham — and your students — for producing two colorful anthologies!

www.createspace.com/3849786

LET ME TELL YOU A STORY…

After the famous author Henry Miller visited Weeks Hall, master of The Shadows-on-the-Teche, he wrote that he had just been to “that strange part of the world called New Iberia, Louisiana.” When I first moved there in 1964, I agreed with him. Rain fell throughout the month of January, and my first glimpse of Bayou Teche, a murky brown tributary, made me shudder. I thought I had arrived in a place where dark stained, well-soaked ground was the norm. I felt this way until spring came to Teche country, and I fell in love with a place that I now call “unique,” rather than Miller’s word “strange.”

During the lush spring, I learned to enjoy and appreciate the people of multicultural origins who had settled in the Teche country and formed a culture that fosters art, music, and writing. New Iberia is the place that nurtured world-famed author, James Lee Burke; the Blue Dog artist, George Rodrigue; the jazz trumpeter, Bunk Johnson; and many other notable artists who thrive in a warm, romantic culture.

In that multicultural atmosphere, I began to seriously write and continue to write poetry, living in New Iberia part of the year and deriving from the culture enough subject matter to fill more than thirty books. During my sojourn in New Iberia, I’m sometimes asked to speak to students interested in Creative Writing and to engage in two or three hour conversations with the aspiring authors in a room at the New Iberia Library where cultural events take place.

Five years ago, I was happy to discover that Susan Edmonds, who brought many outstanding programs to the library, had written and been awarded a grant to initiate a memoir writing class, aka the “life writing class.” By the following year, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette had formed a similar class, and the two classes have been functioning since that time under the tutelage of Kim B. Graham of St. Martinville, Louisiana. Some of the students produce an essay or short story each week; others write poems or songs. 

All of the writing material is inspired by their personal lives and backgrounds. As Kim Graham says, “Memoirs are written not so much to become famous, but to place value on a moment in time. This genre of writing is about how one remembers one’s life, or a part of one’s life, and not about the outcome of the life as a whole…we hear the writer’s voice and his or her style in each story…”

This year, Kim engaged my friend Victoria Sullivan to publish the stories written by classes in New Iberia and Lafayette, and Let Me Tell You A Story emerged this month. It’s a book written by teachers, doctors, cowboys, housewives – people who like to tell stories about family and about that unique part of the world known as Acadiana.

The book also contains photographs and drawings that capture the moment in time about which Kim spoke. Stories range from those that have been inspired by ancestry to humorous vignettes. At the risk of being chided for not including all of the writers in a review, I just wanted to share with readers of “A Wordsworth,” a bit of humor from Glenn Oubre’s essay entitled “Nicknames in My Home Town.” Glenn grew up in the small community of Loreauville, just down the road from New Iberia, and writes that Loreauville once had more nicknames for people than any small town in the U.S. “Generally, the names were terms of endearment that made people feel good about themselves,” Glenn says. “However, some names were mean and cruel and intended to ridicule. The names stuck like glue and stayed for a lifetime.” 

The nicknames included important people like former Mayor Forbus Mestayer who was known as “Bagasse,’ which denotes sugar cane residue. This strange moniker was delivered in Cajun dialect. But most nicknames were more pronounceable – “Mutchie,” “Te-boy,” “Butsy,” “Too Too,” “Full Choke,” and “Hesitation,” to name a few. Glenn even went so far as to prepare an alphabetical table featuring many of the names and to compose a poem (he is also a musician) of eleven quatrains; e.g., "There was Sue Sue, Cho Cho, and Goo Goo,/names that all sound the same./And Me Me, Ge Ge, and De De/they were their claim to fame…My neighbors in the country/were Poon, Too Loo, and Toe Joe./Next door were neighbors Te-Bic, and Ze Ze./Down the road lived Noo-noon and Low Low…” “Pooyie, so much fun,” Glenn concluded his essay. And Pooyie, I agree!

Let Me Tell You A Story will soon be available on www.createspace.com/3847239 and at Books Along the Teche bookstore in New Iberia, Louisiana.  You're in for a reading treat when you sample these stories composed by authentic southern voices.

A subsequent blog will highlight the Lafayette Life Writing Class’s publication, Wit, Wisdom, and Mostly True Stories.

A GRAY AND GREEN DAY…

Gray day on the mountain

Friends here at Sewanee, TN chide me for giving Sewanee the “aka” of “Grayburg,” but today when I woke up, I thought about this neutral color of gray that seems to pervade the atmosphere on The Mountain. This morning, a gentle rain and overhanging clouds make the name Grayburg seem fitting for these environmental changes, but on far more dry days the iron-colored sky and encroaching mists overpower the village, and Grayburg seems to be a likely name for the place. Natives of the community bristle when I use this name, especially when I say, “it’s an ugly day outside today,” and they hasten to describe the “beautiful mystical look” of the environment, using adjectives like “pearl,” “charcoal,” “silver,” and “gunmetal” to define just plain old gray. It’s a color that isn't white or black, but is a sort of pessimistic hue which forms the background for movies about the British moors, medieval castles, murders in the mists, and other murky subjects.

Green forest in our backyard

Of course, my native Louisiana is often no more uplifting in color, as I’ve always described the sky there as a “threatening-to-rain sky,” and many days in the Fall and winter, fog shrouds the cane fields, highways, and swamps. However, the architecture in Cajun country is not Gothic, and here at Sewanee, we’re surrounded by Gothic buildings on the campus and gray stone residences scattered throughout the town. The color is dignified and authoritative, but constant exposure to it sometimes elicits “gray moods.” Even the fence that surrounds our cottage, which began its life as a natural tan color has begun to silver and now blends in with the rest of Grayburg.

I read that if you want to feel creative and joyful about life, stare at a green object or landscape for two seconds and you’ll lighten up. One of my favorite rites for overcoming melancholia is to walk outdoors and look at the woods where green is the most prevalent color in the natural world, a refreshing color that alleviates anxiety and restores energy.

When I lived in the province of Khuzestan in southern Iran for two years, I appreciated the blue-green colors of gates, mosques, and grillwork on houses and learned that shades of green and blue are regarded as sacred in Iran because they signify paradise. I lived on desert terrain, and with the help of a Portuguese friend, painted a wall in our dining room the color of the ocean to boost the spirits of my family who drooped in the tan landscape.

On a particularly gray day recently, I penned the following poem entitled “The Color Green,” which may become the title poem in a new book of poetry I’m writing:

THE COLOR GREEN

the experts say,

is requisite for creativity,

stare at a verdant object

or landscape for two seconds

and words reach their level of spirit;

trees leafing out on the Cumberland hills,

lichen climbing a stone wall,

the color of hospital wards,

an emerald peace,

mint that my father planted

in the yard of my memory,

grass drinking in dew,

and onions finding their Spring life…

all for the poem that announces life

saying the words for strumpet seasons,

for even the sky washing green.

This, touts the experts

is the color of the opera of language,

the dense forests of stories

you can now listen to in a color…

for everything there is to say.