Panel on Carville, LA at the Tenn Williams Fest

So, a few weeks ago I went to the panel on Carville, LA at the Tenn. Williams Fest. They had James Carville, Marcia Gaudet, Neil White, and Jose Ramirez talking about their experiences and books revolving around the National Leprosarium that was built in Carville, LA. I've linked to the author's books above, because they are all really good reads. I've been writing about Carville since 2005 and stopped literally because of Hurricane Katrina. I wrote the book Memorial and Sight Lines instead. But I went back to the Carville book because the Federal government built the morgue to identify bodies found in the floodwaters in Carville, LA. There is a poem in Memorial and Sight Lines that references this morgue.

At this point I have done a ton of research on Hansen's Disease and the history of the leprosarium, but it was wonderful to hear the panelists speak. Primarily, Ramirez's story is touching as a patient at the hospital during the sixties. In his talk, you could still hear his discomfort with the L word (leprosy) and his need to impart the incredible stigma associated with this disease.

Ironically, while all the panelists were cognizant of the stigma and even told stories about the patients' reactions to terms such as "being treated like a leper," an audience member still stood up and asked if there were any more patients in Carville at the "leper colony." I could see all the panelists cringe when the words came over the microphone. Neil White deftly referred to the center by its name as a hospital for the research of Hansen's Disease.

Here are some highlights from my notes:
Ramirez: "There is a great deal to be learned from being institutionalized."

Neil White who was actually a federal prisoner at the hospital during the short time that both patients and federal prisoners were housed on the grounds: talked about the eclectic convergence of patients, prisoners, staff, doctors, guards, etc. A unique mixture not to be seen again.

Armadillo statue on the desk; research center in New Iberia. (Nine-banded armadillo is a carrier of HD, symbol of HD research)

James Carville talked about the sterilization of the mail coming out of Carville. Stamps falling off the Stars.*

(*The Star was a periodical written at Carville.)

Ramirez spoke about the scars in the soul vs. physical scars as well as the impact on his mother and mothers in general who either could not protect their children or who were diagnosed with HD and had their children taken from them.

Gaudet referenced Whitman's "I saw in Louisiana a Live Oak Growing" talking about the large oak near the hospital

No constitutional lawsuits were ever brought by patients who were stripped of their civil liberties while at Carville.

A audience member who as a nurse had never seen a patient with HD prompted Ramirez to mention that most physicians receive 10 minutes of training in regards to HD. Each panelists' repsonse to the nurse was that she proabably had comes across a patient with HD, she just didn't know it, or they were misdiagnosed.

Coca Cola didn't want to supply the glass bottles to the hospital because they might be returned, so they refused return shipments. Patients boycotted Coke for Pepsi and began to use the Coke bottles that couldn't be returned to line the flower beds and walkways. Neil White referenced a patient saying: Coca Cola bottles still a Coca Cola bottle, it's just found a new purpose.


******Sorry for any typos; Issa insists that I hold her and type one-handed.

New Print Edition of Exquisite Corpse

Parts of the long poem I'm writing about the leprosarium in Carville, LA are in the new corpse. Dave has some wonderful poems in here as well. The whole magazine is amazing; they certainly came back into the print world with a bang!

ADVANCE COPIES OF EXQUISITE CORPSE ANNUAL #1 ON SALE NOW! Ed in Chief Andrei Codrescu presents artwork by Ralph Steadman, Joel Lipman; poetry by Diane di Prima, Bill Berkson, Alice Notley, Mike Topp, Jim Gustafson, Ruxandra Cesereanu; prose by Jerome Rothenberg, Willie Smith, Aram Saroyan, Lance Olsen, Davis Schneiderman; and more more more! So get your historic freak on!Send a check made out to "UCA" ($20 per issue) to Exquisite Corpse Annual/Department of Writing/University of Central Arkansas/Conway, AR 72035 or send PayPal payment to corpse_ed@yahoo.com.

For intl. orders please add $7.50 per issue for shipping. Lifetime subscriptions $100. Also available on Amazon.com .

http://www.corpse.org/

Rex Rose, Design Ed. Terry Wright, Associate Ed. Mark Spitzer, Managing Ed.

New House Guest and Painting with Food

This is the rock lobster feast of Monday night to welcome our new house guest Hannah who arrived Friday night around midnight with her friend Willy by car from Brooklyn, NY. She'll be staying with us a few weeks as our live-in help forced to partake in our New Orleans delicacies and traditions as well the manual labor of electronically transcribing Bernadette Mayer's Ethics of Sleep manuscript. The rock lobster feast consists of rock lobster claws, (which are not nearly as juicy and plumb as regular lobster claws, very crab like in fact) along with scallops, roasted cauliflower with a Bearnaise sauce, roasted beets on a bed of grape leaves. Chef Brinks really showing his best for the help.

Poet Hannah Zeavin will be featured in the 17 Poets! Reading Series August 7th along with musical guest Willy Gantrim. She has a book forthcoming from Hanging Loose Press entitled Circa. I have been reading the manuscript today, and it is very impressive. She will be going to Yale in the fall, but mostly by force when I kick her out of the house as she has decided to sell her soul to stay permanently in New Orleans. This is her on our porch talking to poet Akilah Oliver and trying to enlist her in setting down roots in New Orleans.

I continue to research the leprosarium at Carville, LA as well as the history of the village. Word is that the Exquisite Corpse is being resurrected to print in an Anthology to be released by City Lights in Spring of '09. Sections from the poem Carville, LA: Village of Forgotten Names may be found there if they garner official approval by the head poppa Codrescu.

Solid Quarters are being printed and prepared for their big release party and reading on August 14th. And school is starting up again and there is no clear reason why the kindergarten class needs tropical colored markers as I'm sure 5 and 6 year olds for many hundreds of years have illustrated just fine with the basic primary colors.