New Orleans Yawps

yawp (yôp) [Middle English yolpen, possibly variant of yelpen. See yelp.]
intr.v. yawped, yawp·ing, yawps 1. To utter a sharp cry; yelp. 2. To talk loudly, raucously, or coarsely.
n. 1. A bark; a yelp. 2. Loud or coarse talk or utterance: “I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world” (Walt Whitman).

In places like Bywater, Marigny, and the Gold Mine Saloon in the French Quarter, you can't toss a beignet or spill a cup of chicory coffee without hitting an artist. The place leaks and reeks cultcha. The HearingVoices Travelling Soul Capturing Show stopped in New Orleans in early 2005 (pre-Katrina); here's some of the voices we heard...

New Orleans- Feeling (5:28) an audio-tour with Eluard Burt

More than any city in the world, New Orleans, Louisiana is known for its distinct music and food. It's also known for the Christian holiday Fat Tuesday, in French: Mardi Gras. Musician Eluard Burt is intimately familiar with the flavors, feelings, spices and sounds of this Mississippi River city; and with the live music, heard day and night in Jackson Square, on Bourbon Street, and everywhere around the French Quarter.

A shorter version of this audio-tour was broadcast on the American Public Media radio series Weekend America.

© Paintings by Tasha Robbins

Tasha & her portrait of Dave

Billie Pierce's Jazz Funeral (2:14) © poem by Lee Meitzen Grue
Monument to Pork Chop (2:30) © poem by Lee Meitzen Grue

Lee Grue, poet and short-story writer: "My poems about music all have to do with live performance. It is a performance I have been to. They can't do it exactly the same way again. Different things are going on in the lives of the musicians; different things are going on in my life. So performance is a one-thing."

On jazz funerals: "There a real thing. They have jazz funeral for tourists, where there's no body. But for real life, we have jazz funerals, for musicians and esteemed artists. The music is always very sad when you're going, then they bring it back happy. And if you have to leave, you get left with the sadness sometimes."

On the 'secondline': "The secondline is the people that come behind the funeral and dance -- they're wonderful dancers. But anybody in the group behind the coffin and behind the musicians, that's the secondline. And I always considered my poems to be secondlines. It's a tribute. I've known them personally. So when I write about somebody who's dead, I'm writing about somebody I've known. And it is a one-time performance."

The Last Session (detail) © Paintings by Joshua Walsh "For nearly two decades, I have been seduced by New Orleans in all her splendor. The New Orleans music scene thrives on our streets, in our clubs and in our backyards. From Brass Band to Zydeco, I paint history as it unfolds." Self-portrait	Flambeaux Series
	"Drumset" from Preservation Hall

Sleeping the Piano excerpt (0:59) © poem by Dave Brinks
Eluard Burt, flute; recorded at 17 Poets!

Dave Brinks is an arts instigator and impresario. YAWP* is his new journal of poets and painters. Many of them show up at Dave's bar, the Gold Mine Saloon, which every Thursday night turns into a 17 Poets! performance and art gallery.

*From Whitman (see definition at top), or stands for: You Assholes Write Poetry.

(Eluard, Lee, Tasha and Dave photos © Hildie Golding.)

E-SOURCES:

Dave Brinks book- The Snow Poems: First Snow
Dave Brinks poems- Exquisite Corpse
17 Poets!- New Orleans School for the Imagination
Lee Grue book- In the Sweet Balance of the Flesh
Lee Grue story- After the Olney, Texas One-Armed Dove Shoot
Lee Grue story- Beloved Stormy, Beloved Torchy
Lee Grue- Authors Guild
Lee Grue w/ Eluard Burt cd - On Frenchmen Street
Eluard & Co. cd - Gumbolia
Eluard & Co. w/ poet Sonia Sanchez- Shake Loose Our Skin (MP3s)
Eluard Burt videos- Tipitina's music club
Joshua Walsh gallery - New Orleans Street Studies
Walt Whitman in New Orleans- Stephen Ambrose article
WWOZ FM- New Orleans and Louisiana Music Radio