Creole Journal The Louisiana Poems

9780916418847

0916418847

The unique racial history of Louisiana is reflected in these poems in which many personalities in Creole society are revived in all their colorful & spectacular splendor. Creole folk songs, events in the lives of free people of color, clandestine master-slave relationships, voodoo spells & the anguish of love & longing are subjects treated with sensitivity & the authority of careful scholarship. Poems set in the 1700s become as personal & contemporary as our daily newspaper. Some of the poems appear in both Creole & English & the book contains a helpful glossary. Sybil Kein is a New Orleans Creole poet of consummate skill. Her earlier collections include Gombo People, the first contribution to American letters of original literature in the Louisiana Creole language & Delta Dancer. She is a retired professor of English at University of Michigan-Flint. The author has also recorded songs on cassette & compact disc, including Serenade Creole; Maw-Maw's Creole Lullaby & Other Songs for Children, & Creole Ballads & Zydeco, the latter of which includes sixteen Creole slave songs never before published.