(C) Verite News New Orleans This story was originally published by Verite News New Orleans and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Lit Louisiana: State poet laureate has local focus, universal imagery [1] ['Fatima Shaik', 'More Fatima Shaik'] Date: 2022-11-22 Mona Lisa Saloy with Jericho Brown, a former Dillard University student who won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Credit: Courtesy of Mona Lisa Saloy Lit Louisiana highlights the state’s contemporary literature and brings significant books and authors from the past to the readers of Verite. Mona Lisa Saloy is unquestionably a good choice for the 2022 Poet Laureate of Louisiana. She has stayed close to her roots and uses literature to explore the emotions of her home state. Her focus is local, but her imagery is universal. This poem is from “Second Line Home: New Orleans Poems”: Louisiana Lore Why go barefoot in Louisiana? Holy Ground American by birth Louisianans by Grace God’s Country, Chaque corps importe (everybody matters) New Orleans, a Creole Country by Baptism, a Local Call to God You can find Saloy at the neighborhood meetings, in her office at Dillard University, or on her porch. Still, compare her to the South American writers whose love of the particular makes up some of the richest and most spiritual books. “Second Line Home” is her most recent book of poetry but “Red Beans and Ricely Yours” won the T. S. Eliot prize in 2005. “Between Laughter and Tears: Black Mona Lisa” was an early work in 1995. Saloy was the Grand Girot at the 2022 MAAFA commemoration. Her reading in Congo Square was a lyrical history of the people who came to the city, the pressures that beset them, and a recognition of the honor they deserve. The MAAFA memorial included a ceremony of her reading and words from a variety of inspirational voices, music, and dance. It concluded with a walk to the Mississippi River to remember the known and unknown ancestors. Read Saloy’s latest book and find the connections between her work and our Afro-Louisiana lives. EMBERS The “Norton Anthology of African American Literature,” general editor Henry Louis Gates, is not focused on Louisiana, but it is a great resource if you’d like to get up to speed on the history of Black writing and oral and musical literary legacies. The book is expensive in its latest edition (right now, Third). Get an earlier edition and add it to your home library. It’s a good investment for your family. Read it from cover to cover, slowly over the years. Join Verite’s Mailing List Get the news that matters to you Republish This Story Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license. Close window X Republish this article This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Unless otherwise noted, you can republish most of Verite’s stories for free under a Creative Commons license. For digital publications: Look for the “Republish This Story” button underneath each story. To republish online, simply click the button, copy the html code and paste into your Content Management System (CMS). You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style. You can’t sell or syndicate our stories. Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization. If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @VeriteNewsNola @VeriteNewsNola For print publications: You have to credit Verite. We prefer “Author Name, Verite News” in the byline. If you’re not able to add the byline, please include a line at the top of the story that reads: “This story was originally published by Verite News” and include our website, veritenews.org You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style. You cannot republish our photographs, illustrations or graphics without specific permission (contact our managing editor Tim Morris Our stories may appear on pages with ads, but not ads specifically sold against our stories. You can’t sell or syndicate our stories. You can only publish select stories individually — not as a collection. Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization. If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @VeriteNewsNola on Facebook @VeriteNewsNola on Twitter. If you have any other questions, contact managing editor Tim Morris. Lit Louisiana: State poet laureate has local focus, universal imagery

Lit Louisiana: State poet laureate has local focus, universal imagery

by Fatima Shaik, Verite
November 22, 2022


Mona Lisa Saloy with Jericho Brown, a former Dillard University student who won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

Lit Louisiana highlights the state’s contemporary literature and brings significant books and authors from the past to the readers of Verite.

Mona Lisa Saloy is unquestionably a good choice for the 2022 Poet Laureate of Louisiana. She has stayed close to her roots and uses literature to explore the emotions of her home state. Her focus is local, but her imagery is universal. This poem is from "Second Line Home: New Orleans Poems":

Louisiana Lore

Why go barefoot in Louisiana? Holy Ground American by birth Louisianans by Grace God’s Country, Chaque corps importe (everybody matters) New Orleans, a Creole Country by Baptism, a Local Call to God

You can find Saloy at the neighborhood meetings, in her office at Dillard University, or on her porch. Still, compare her to the South American writers whose love of the particular makes up some of the richest and most spiritual books. "Second Line Home" is her most recent book of poetry but "Red Beans and Ricely Yours" won the T. S. Eliot prize in 2005. "Between Laughter and Tears: Black Mona Lisa" was an early work in 1995.

Saloy was the Grand Girot at the 2022 MAAFA commemoration. Her reading in Congo Square was a lyrical history of the people who came to the city, the pressures that beset them, and a recognition of the honor they deserve. The MAAFA memorial included a ceremony of her reading and words from a variety of inspirational voices, music, and dance. It concluded with a walk to the Mississippi River to remember the known and unknown ancestors. Read Saloy’s latest book and find the connections between her work and our Afro-Louisiana lives.

EMBERS

The "Norton Anthology of African American Literature," general editor Henry Louis Gates, is not focused on Louisiana, but it is a great resource if you’d like to get up to speed on the history of Black writing and oral and musical literary legacies. The book is expensive in its latest edition (right now, Third). Get an earlier edition and add it to your home library. It’s a good investment for your family. Read it from cover to cover, slowly over the years.

Join Verite’s Mailing List

Get the news that matters to you

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