Katrina
by Lyn Lifshin
Published by Poetic Matrix Press
97 pages, price $15.00
ISBN 978-0-9827343-0-8
Description
The Book
"The Super Bowl of 2010 was what I call a minor drama. For those involved it is
important indeed, and yet, in the grand scheme it passes mostly unnoticed once the
game has ended. This time, because of the teams involved, the New Orleans Saints
and the Indianapolis Colts, the game played out in the symbolic realm as well. With
the Saints' win many across the country could better join with the still suffering
people of New Orleans and the gulf coast; could join again in their loss, grief
and rise with compassion to celebrate with them in this minor drama that even for
a moment in passing could eclipse the major drama of Katrina. Can poetry be a place,
as well, to rise up in compassion? Lyn Lifshin's voice does this. She speaks of
individual dramas, not minor but unique, in the lives of those who experienced the
major drama of Katrina."
— John Peterson, publisher, from the preface
Lyn Lifshin
For her absolute dedication to the small presses which first published her, and for managing to survive on her own apart from any major publishing house or academic institution, Lyn Lifshin has earned the distinction "Queen of the Small Presses." She has been praised by Robert Frost, Ken Kesey and Richard Eberhart. Ed Sanders has seen her as "a modern Emily Dickinson." Her poem "No More Apologizing" has been called "among the most impressive documents of the women's poetry movement" by Alicia Ostriker.
From Katrina:
| As One Man Sat in an Evacuation Center in Baton Rouge | It was as if All of Us Were Already Pronounced Dead |
|---|---|
|
he could not stop watching the images of hurt and crying children on TV. Known as Grandpa Grady the elderly man in his River Ridge neighborhood was sickened by the images, was saying "ya'll get those children." To calm him, family members lied and reassured him they would rescue the children he was seeing on TV. But as the day wore on, sounds grew quieter and he stopped eating or speaking. A nurse stopped by but did not send him to a hospital. Last Thursday he died in a single bed in a small room at the shelter. "I think," his daughter said, he grieved him self to death" |
behind a cardboard sign: SHELTER FROM HELL. Trash barrels overflow. For 5 days, 20,000 waited to be rescued, not just from the flood water but from the nightmarish place they sough refuge. The moon that hovered over the center seemed closer than help. Rapes and murders, robberies, fathers trying to protect their family. "It was as if somebody already had the body bags. Wasn't no body coming to get us." No one knows how many died, were raped, assaulted. 250 National Guards camped out but did nothing. Everywhere I went one woman said, I saw people with guns in their hands putting guns to other people's heads |