Big Muddy River of Stars

by Pelegrin, Alison

• ISBN13: 9781931968492
• ISBN10: 1931968497
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-10-01
• Publisher: Univ of Akron Pr

Summary

In Big Muddy River of Stars, her second full-length collection of poems, Alison Pelegrin continues her celebration of the quirks and characters of south Louisiana, tempered now by the devastations of hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. These sassy poems come on like a carnival parade, with boisterous shout-outs to sleepy rivers and Big Shot soda, crawfish and trailer trash and those ¿git-r-dones¿ who rebuild homes ravaged by hurricane and high water. Presiding over the book is the spirit of Chinese poet Li Po, Pelegrin¿s prodigal mentor and drinking buddy. Sharing his ¿exultation¿ and ¿taste of recklessness,¿ she wants to write ¿the Li Po way¿ / wine and the wide world.¿ And she does. With lines that laugh and rage and slur in the piquant tongue of her native Louisiana, Pelegrin knows how to play the blues in a bold and irreverent key.

Author Biography

In addition to Big Muddy River of Stars, Alison Pelegrin is the author of The Zydeco Tablets (Word Press, 2002) as well as three chapbooks. Her poems have been featured on Poetry Daily and The Writer's Almanac, and in dozens of literary journals such as Poetry, Ploughshares, Shenandoah, and The Southern Review. The recipient of fellowships from the Louisiana Division of the Arts and the NEA, she was a Tennessee Williams Scholar at the Sewanee Writers' Conference. She teaches English at Southeastern Louisiana University and lives in Mandeville, Louisiana with her family.

Table of Contents

One
Alone, Drinking with the Tickfaw River	p. 3
To a Lawn Jockey, Lines Written in Spring	p. 4
In Livingston Parish, Dreaming of Li Po	p. 5
Banished Immortal	p. 6
Wise Men Still Seek Him	p. 7
Homewrecker	p. 8
Shaggy's Soul Food Open Soon, Said the Sign outside of Tallulah	p. 10
Squeezers	p. 11
Don't Worry, Spiders, I Keep House Casually--	p. 13
Lost in Betsy	p. 15
Jackalope, Farewell	p. 17
Baby, You Don't Know My Mind	p. 19
Li Po at the Crawfish Boil	p. 20
Two
Letter of a Thousand Days	p. 25
Ballade of the Easy Broads	p. 26
Going to Hell	p. 28
How to Deliver a Baby in a Taxicab	p. 30
Prodigal	p. 31
Junkyard Dog	p. 32
Tattoo Haiku	p. 33
Go, Poem,	p. 34
The Ironworkers' Epitaph	p. 35
Eat Nutria	p. 37
Muffuletta Night	p. 39
Breaking Curfew with the Ancient Chinese Poet	p. 40
Pharaoh Says	p. 41
A Prayer before Landfall	p. 43
Three
Li Po after the Storm	p. 47
Three Sheets	p. 48
Your Psychic Powers and How to Develop Them	p. 50
The Squatter's Almanac	p. 51
Big Shot	p. 53
Mister Thirteen Feet	p. 55
Mysterious Ways	p. 57
Night Thoughts	p. 58
Choose Your Own Adventure	p. 59
You Loot, We Shoot	p. 61
Hair of the Dog	p. 63
FEMA Trailers, Moonlit Night	p. 64
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Jackalope	p. 65
Blue Roof Blues	p. 68
Ode to Contractors Possessing Various Levels of Expertise	p. 69
Acknowledgments	p. 71
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.