Poetry has long meandered through the streets of New Orleans similar to the rivers, lakes, and canals that seem to enclose the city in their watery embrace. So it’s no surprise to see the swamps teeming with poetry that reminds us of life’s mutability. In 1942, Louisiana established the poet laureate position to celebrate Louisiana poets as literary ambassadors for the state through public programming. The Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities (LEH) along with the governor recently officially announced the next poet laureate, New Orleans poet Gina Ferrara, who will serve a two-year term. This role includes promoting and educating the diverse communities of Louisiana about poetry and how it shapes our world and thinking. Ferrara currently is an associate professor at Delgado Community College and has published five poetry collections: Amiss is her latest book (Dos Madres Press, 2023). The LEH not only supports the nomination process but also promotes readings and events across the state during each poet’s term, such as lectures or workshops that are offered free to the public. Ferrara sat down with me at her Mid-City home to discuss her delight in receiving recognition for her lifelong work in poetry as well as her excitement about what this opportunity entails.
What are you most looking forward to as an ambassador of poetry over the next two years?
I suppose the fact that it is two years devoted specifically to promoting poetry throughout the state. As you know, for many years I have curated The Poetry Buffet, a monthly reading series in New Orleans. One thing I intend to do is to feature poets throughout Louisiana and provide them with an opportunity to generate new work and share it.
Let’s talk about hosting poetry events: Since 2007, you have hosted The Poetry Buffet, a reading series at the Latter Library. Why do you think it’s important to provide space for the sharing of poetry, and can you talk about how listening over the years impacts you?
The Poetry Buffet has been a pleasure to curate. What amazes me is how three or four poets will read, and similar or very connected themes will echo and reverberate throughout the reading. I think that’s because we are all documentarians responding to what’s happening with a poetic lens, even though the poets that are sharing their work are all quite different, yet the connection is there which is very comforting. I think that shared connection also helps to create a safe space where poets can feel comfortable reading their work.
Speaking of documenting a theme, can you tell us how Katrina changed you, your poetry, and your life in New Orleans?
I’ve lived in New Orleans all my life. I now think of my life as pre-Katrina and post-Katrina, so the storm was definitely a marker. After Katrina, my work became more focused on loss for obvious reasons. Post-Katrina, I wrote a poem called “My Mother’s City” about how all the houses where my mother lived were destroyed by the storm. I could easily see loss as something immediate and generational. This is not a theme that I have been able to shake. It continues to have a grip on me, focusing now on both environmental and personal loss, but undoubtedly Katrina jump-started it.
I think a lot about pre-Katrina New Orleans and how wild and creative our undocumented and unrecorded lives and events were prior to the storm. What can you tell our readers about poetry in New Orleans in the ‘90s and early 2000s just prior to Katrina? What do you recall the most about that scene? Who was making waves then that you feel imprinted upon you the importance of poetry in the community?
So much poetic energy was present in the city at that time. Readings were happening just about every night at places like Kaldi’s, the Dragon’s Den, and Breezy’s. Maxine Cassin, Lee Grue, and Martha McFerren were all very strong matriarchs who lent their support to younger poets and were shaping the community as we know it today. One poet from back then whose work made an imprint was Moose Jackson. His work looks not just at the enormous culture we have here, but it also addresses our ecosystem, the fragility of it, and the impact of losing something sacred.
I remember meeting Lee Meitzen Grue as a very young poet and hearing about her backyard Poetry Theater and poetry and jazz work with Eluard Burt and John Sinclair, and she encouraged me to submit to The New Laurel Review, a journal she edited for years. She was certainly a matriarch of our poetry community here in New Orleans for many decades. She also founded the New Orleans Poetry Forum which I know you were involved with. Can you tell us about other communities you have been drawn to throughout your poetry career? Is there a poet from Louisiana that you find yourself turning to again and again?
We have a tremendous poetry community here. One of the first I was involved with was the New Orleans Poetry Forum. This was probably close to 30 years ago, and many poets I knew from the Forum became dear friends. Community can also be found in the many readings that happen regularly in the city. Obviously, the Maple Leaf comes to mind, which is the longest continuous weekly poetry series in North America [est. 1979] and takes place each Sunday at the Maple Leaf Bar, and there are poets who consistently read and regularly attend. There are so many Louisiana poets who inspire me: Malaika Favorite, Maxine Cassin, Yusef Komunyakaa (who doesn’t live here but writes so frequently about the area), Sheryl St. Germain, Peter Cooley, Benjamin Morris. I could easily name 20 more, but I know we have limited space.
You’ve been an educator in New Orleans for many decades in classrooms from the elementary level to college. Why is writing and reading poetry important for students in any discipline? And how do you see how poetry is taught changing with the use of AI tools in the classroom?
Any time students can delve into and explore the humanities, especially poetry, it provides them with an opportunity to gain insight or to express themselves, which helps us to become better people who are more evolved. Reading and writing poetry helps us to understand ourselves and each other more, so it really is a humanitarian act. As for AI, it can instantly generate whatever we tell it, which is beneficial in many ways, but part of making art and writing poems is deliberation and planning… often completely destroying an attempt several times before coming away with anything halfway decent. There is beauty in that type of struggle, and there is also an evolution that happens in the process, with the work itself and with the person. We should not shortchange ourselves on this or take the easy way out. Brilliance and originality are derived from the task of creating.
And I would add healing. There is something healing that can happen in that struggle to find the words that create connection, and I’m not sure if AI can translate that yet in the way the poet can through their own body of experiences. New Orleans itself can be a struggle to survive in, but I see the city throughout your work. How has New Orleans made you a poet?
Unlike any other place, New Orleans has a constant theme of death and rebirth that can be seen in ordinary and extraordinary ways. Jazz funerals and second lines exemplify this but so does seeing a camellia bush with gorgeous red blooms on a drab January day. This constant and obvious cycle informs my work.
Can you leave us with a small poem for today?
Yellow’s Potential
Branches stark, thick silhouettes
not long after lockdown, quarantined,
even the sky threatened fever and infection,
I remember the sallow appearance,
growing more jaundiced.
Still, I loved yellow’s potential to define
daffodils, butter, grosgrain ribbons,
the memory of my mother’s favorite dress
when it hung outside on the line, clipped
by a pair of stiff wooden pins, sun dried,
swaying pale, how it provided contrast
for three hovering crows.
Photo by Katie Sikora
