In
this chapbook Bourque explores the life of Creole musician Amédé Ardoin, born
in 1898 in St. Landry Parish and who pioneered Creole music. Ardoin was
incarcerated at the mental institution in Pineville after being beaten in a
racial assault sometime late in his life. He died on Nov. 3, 1942. Legendary
Cajun fiddler Dennis McGee, his friend with whom he played and recorded, called
Amédé Ardoin une chanson vivant, a
living song.
A
portion of Bourque’s book will go toward creating a public commemorative marker
placed in Ardoin’s community to honor his life and contribution to the Cajun
and Creole culture.
Bourque
is professor emeritus of English at UL-Lafayette and is the author of several
books including “Megan’s Guitar and Other Poems from Acadie.”
New releases
Gary
L. Stewart of Baton Rouge, vice president of Delta Tech Service of Louisiana,
details searching for his father after being contacted by his birth mother and
discovering startling news in “The Most Dangerous Animal of All: Searching For My Father ... And Finding The Zodiac Killer.” Writing with Susan Mustafa, Stewart
alleges that his father is the Zodiac Killer, believed to have killed at least
five people in Northern California in 1968 and 1969, murders that were never
solved.
John
Gery, a Research Professor of English and Seraphia D. Leyda Teaching
Fellow at UNO, has published a collection of poems titled “Have At You Now!”
Gery directs the Ezra Pound Center for Literature in Brunnenburg, Italy, and
lives in New Orleans with his wife, poet Biljana Obradović, and their son,
Petar. "The poems in John Gery's ‘Have at You Now!’ are acted upon with
the same verve and wit and parry and heart as that scene from Hamlet from which
the title is taken,” said Lafayette poet Darrell Bourque. “These are the poems
of a huge imagination and a huge intellect whose observations are at once as
capable of being as fully engaged in the philosophical as in the familial. John
Gery is a powerful traveler poet who counters experience with thought, form
with idea, technique with delivery. Gery is one of the best poets writing today
and I go to him repeatedly for guidance and direction. Have at You Now! is
nothing short of a master class in how to make poems that matter."
“Cast
of Characters,” a selection of George Gurtner's New Orleans magazine columns of
the same name, is expected to be released this month by Louisiana publisher
Margaret Media. Dubbed “local color in and around the Big Easy,” it features more
than 60 people — with photos — who make New Orleans home.
Young
Adult novelist Ruta Sepetys sets her latest novel, “Out of the Easy,” in 1950
New Orleans. Seventeen-year-old Josie Moraine is known among locals as the
daughter of a brothel prostitute, which makes her want to flee the city. A
mysterious death in the Quarter, however, leaves her tangled in an
investigation.
Michael
Patrick Welch offers a look into New Orleans non-traditional side in “New Orleans: The Underground Guide.” Contents include where to get naked, how to
make the most of Mardi Gras according to banjo player Geoff Douville, what to
order from the Slavic menu at Siberia and where to find the New Orleans Giant
Puppet Festival, among much more. Welch is the author of several books and has
contributed to New Orleans publications as well as Salon, Columbia Journalism
Review, McSweeney's, Oxford American, and Vice magazine.
Book events
Ronlyn
Domingue will read from and sign “The Chronicle of Secret Riven,” the Keeper of Tales Trilogy Book Two, at 2 p.m.
Saturday, May 31 at Barnes & Noble Lafayette. Domingue is the author of “The Mercyof Thin Air” and “The Mapmaker’s War.”
Cheré Coen is the author
of “Haunted Lafayette, Louisiana” and “Exploring Cajun Country: A Historic
Guide to Acadiana,” both from The History Press, and co-author of “Magic’s in
the Bag: Creating Spellbinding Gris Gris Bags and Sachets.” She teaches writing
at UL-Lafayette’s Continuing Education. Write her at cherecoen@gmail.com.
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