All Souls

Essential Poems

Brenda Marie Osbey

• Publisher: LSU Press
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9780807162019
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

All Souls: Essential Poems brings together work that reflects the interweaving of history, memory, and the indelible bonds between living and dead that has marked the output of Louisiana Poet Laureate Emerita Brenda Marie Osbey. Comprising poems written and published over the span of four decades, this thematic collection highlights the unity of Osbey's voice and narrative intent.The six sections of the book reveal the breadth of her poetic vision. The first, "House in the Faubourg, " contains poems focused on the people and places of Osbey's native New Orleans, and the penultimate section, "Unfinished Coffees, " examines the Crescent City within a broader, more contemporary meditation on culture. "Something about Trains" features two suites of poems that use trains and railway stations as settings from which to inspect desolation, writing, and memory; and "Little History, Part One" recounts tales of European settlement and exploitation of the New World. The poems in "What Hunger" look at the many facets of desire, while "Mourning Like a Skin" includes elegies and poems addressing the lasting presence of the dead.Dynamic and unflinching, the poems in All Souls speak of a world with many secrets, known "only through having learned them / the hardest way."

1.
house in the faubourg

The House in the Street Where Memory Lives

i sit at the front parlor window

i touch memory with the tips of my fingers

the back of my tongue—

it falls apart—

the old woman

the man who is old now and alone up at manchac

alone in all that swamp—

it falls apart:

memory

the years and all their days

rolling a little from place to place

the visions that dry before they can be grasped

visions that dance in the hard sunlight

stretched long across the floor.

bamba

sweet basil

the stocking-feet of my mother’s friend

the good hands of a man

death and betrayal

the turning away

small senseless words like please—

what good is any of this to me now?

to anyone?

it falls apart.

it falls.

here is my chest all bone and fleshless skin

with almost no breast to cling to

my hips below

my belly

hands of a woman

hands of a man

it is falling.

it is falling now.

far into the night it falls—

bamba sweet basil

the thrashing of bones

the witch of sleep

the caul come down.

and there is the city, the street

here, the house my mother built

the house my mother built around us

asks the same questions my mother asked.

i do not answer.

this is my house.

Faubourg

the faubourg is a city within the larger city

and the women walk in pairs and clusters

moving along the slave-bricked streets

wearing print dresses

carrying parcels

on their hips or heads.

within the small city of the faubourg

there is always work to be done:

rooms and yards and laundry to see to

and always some trouble

to be put to rest.

burdens to be shifted

from an arm to a hip

from a hip to the head.

there are children to be scolded and sung to.

there are wares to call out

to sell or buy or search for at market.

and along the narrow banqettes leading there—

a cook

a seamstress

a day’s-work-woman to find or be found.

there are chickens to feel and buy

and get their necks wrung.

palm oil to buy and sell

palm wine

hot sweet potato pies.

and there are blues to be sung or heard

above the trees and rooftops

all hours of the day and night.

the dead must be mourned and sung over

and prayers told them to carry to the other side.

the dead must be chanted and marched to their tombs

and the tombs then tended and the dogs kept away.

yatta leaves must be dried and woven into belts and baskets.

rags must be burned in sulphur to ward off mosquitoes

and slave brick crushed and scrubbed across doorways.

there is love to be made

conju to be worked.

and quiet as it is kept

most anything can be done in the faubourg.

in such a city

what name is good for a woman?

in such a city

what good is any woman’s name?

The Old Women on Burgundy Street

the old women on burgundy street

braid the years

into their grey-brown-white hair.

they put patient time

into the pinning of a plait

braiding in equal

ones and twos.

for various reasons

some will braid by morning

or late evening

after supper songs

after dishes and cats

have been put away.

only once or twice

have i seen one braiding at noon.

the old women on burgundy street

drink bourbon from coffee cups

while the sun goes down.

it cures rheumatism

gout

and ailments left over

from the change-of-life.

they braid in french braids

a neat basket weave

that does not interf...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Prologue: Widows of Tremé
• 1. House in the Faubourg
• 2. Mourning Like a Skin
• 3. Something about Trains
• 4. Little History, Part One
• 5. Unfinished Coffees
• 6. What Hunger
• Glossary and Notes
• Author Biography