The ΟγΈΫΑωΊΟ²ΚΙϊΠ€ΊΕΒλ Press has published βI Am New Orleans,β a poetic compendium of what it means to be and to miss New Orleans featuring the work of 36 contemporary poets.
In 1968, Marcus Christianβs definitive poem βI Am New Orleansβ celebrated the 250th anniversary of the cityβs founding. Now, contemporary poets take up Christianβs enduring theme, simultaneously an assertion and a point of inquiry: what, and who, is New Orleans today?
Christian, who was a writer-in-residence and history professor at the ΟγΈΫΑωΊΟ²ΚΙϊΠ€ΊΕΒλ, was a prolific writer whose poetry often satirized Jim Crow laws. His collection of work is housed in the Universityβs Earl K. Long Library.
The collection will be the Crescent Cityβs latest major contribution to African American poetry, but far from the first, taking as an antecedent βLes Cenelles,β the first anthology by American poets of color, published in New Orleans in 1845.
βI Am New Orleans,β can be purchased from any of ΟγΈΫΑωΊΟ²ΚΙϊΠ€ΊΕΒλ Pressβ local bookstore affiliates or online at uno.edu/unopress.