Writer Lewis Nordan Dies

Lewis Nordan
From "Humor, Heartbreak and Hope"

It’s been more than 20 years now that I was first introduced to Lewis “Buddy” Nordan, a writer and teacher. No, I didn’t meet him personally, but through his novel The Sharpshooter Blues, a gift from a friend. I was instantly hooked, eagerly devouring his books and short stories about the residents of Arrow Catcher, Miss. and elsewhere – tales told with that potent Southern concoction of humor and brutality.

His best-known work was Wolf Whistle, based on the murder of Emmett Till in 1955. It concerns a black teenager, who, like Till, is murdered by Southern whites for allegedly making a suggestive remark – a wolf whistle – to a local white woman. In Wolf Whistle, Nordan employs a unique writing technique, narrating the tale through  multiple points of view, including the point of view of the dead youth himself and even a couple of crows!

According to the New York Times obituary, Nordan “did not begin writing until he was in his mid-30s and did not publish his first book until he was in his mid-40s, was the author of four novels, three volumes of short stories and a memoir.”

A teacher of writing with more than two decades at the University of Pittsburgh, the Mississippi-born Nordan was still able to produce critically-acclaimed works of art and developed a cult following, of which I was a proud member. Among the awards he received for his writing were the Southern Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, the American Library Association Notable Book Citation, the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award for Fiction, and the American Library Association Notable Book Citation.

In a 2002 article appearing in the Pitt Chronicle, the newspaper of the University of Pittsburg, Nordan told reporter Patricia Lomando White that every time he sat down to write, he’d offer up a brief prayer to the gods: “Make me a great writer.”

 “I guess I could pray, ‘Make me a good writer,’ be a little more humble, but I say, ‘Make me a great writer,’ not a published writer, not a famous writer,” he said. “That’s what I’m working toward.”

And a great writer he was.

Three Poems by Matthew Germenis

"Ruby, My Dear"*

by Matthew Germenis

My mistress's eyes are nothing

like Monk and Trane -

erratically living in Carnegie Hall.

They are elderly canaries,

plainly set apart by a plain nose

underneath a plain dome;

front lips disappearing on a horizon

of unpolished chrome.

Rusty bolts in the corners of her mouth

squeak, rattle, even clang a little

when she speaks in scratches

through glass teeth jagged brittle

cracked minutely and bent as matches

used for fires and light of the past -

now just archaic symbols

of the music of voices,

the jazz of eyes,

that never seem to last.

A City Kind of Pain (How to Feel Blue)*

by Matthew Germenis

I smelled the ocean where there was none,

lifted dew beads from Jew beards

& was axed to pieces by an Ethiopian sax player

stranded on the corner of an abandoned amusement park.

They tried to tell me of their pain in cracked-glass English

& how it was the same as mine,

Taller than boy soldiers from their homeland,

Superman of Supermen, midnight in strength.

No, I’m not from Sierra Leone &

the dirt wars, stick wars of Bed-Stuy

are nothing like the sun of a civil war.

& the chicken-heads w/ swollen veins

on 19th century stoops,

are deformed Palestinian women,

& the shopkeeper on Prophets Street

caught in the diameter of the bomb.

These are just chicken-heads on the stoop,

veins dripping, dripping.

Gentrification is coming! The boy soldiers are coming!

I smelled the ocean again,

saw the white gulls perch on top of a pier

As “Acknowledgment” was played.

They taught me how to feel blue,

but it was too late.

I already knew. They already knew.

& so we cried together,

not knowing why.

Heartbreak*

by Matthew Germenis

The ideal way for me to deal with it is to clam up and become an oyster in the bottom of the ocean and make pearls for the rest of my life and give them to no one because they belong only to me, I made them with my salt and sand, and I alone will see them glisten in the saliva sunlight of memory, you cannot have it, I refuse to give it to you, did you make it? Did you spend eternity on the ocean floor with the darkness of day? Did you have any other God besides the under-belly of sharks? Did you bathe with the monks in the reefs? No. This pearl is mine alone, and the only way for you to have it is to shuck me.

Reprinted with permission.

About Matthew Germenis: An English major at the University of Southern Mississippi, Matthew Germenis was born and bred in Queens, New York. He enjoys the works of Malamud, Baldwin, Scorsese, Bergman, Kubrick, Paul Simon, Dylan, Mozart and Miles.

Follow Matthew at http://germenis.tumblr.com/

 *Copyright 2011 Matthew Germenis

Copyright 2012 Donald G. Redman

A 'Miraculous' Little Book

I’ve recently stumbled across one of the sweetest little children's books I’ve ever read. “The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane,” by Kate DiCamillo. It’s a terrific story about a stingy, smug china rabbit whose cold heart is about to be warmed by the likes of a fisherman and his wife, a hobo and his dog and a young boy and his dying sister.

“Edward Tulane” is simply beautiful…tender…

Outstanding illustrations by Bagram Ibatoulline.

Coming July 5th: "Dismembered"

“She had beautiful legs. I wanted to keep those legs.”

One by one, investigators found the women’s bodies. Each one carefully posed. Each one brutally mutilated. An arm here. A leg there. ... The killer was cutting his victims to pieces…

“At that point, I pretty much went for the head.”

For ten years in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the killings went on. Women of slight stature were hunted down, bludgeoned and strangled. And what the killer did with their bodies in the privacy of his car, his home, his kitchen, and his shower—was beyond anything police could imagine.

“I was pure evil.”

When investigators finally caught mild-mannered, Star Trek fan Sean Vincent Gillis, he couldn’t wait to tell his story. In the presence of shocked veteran detectives, Sean told them every detail of his killings, everything he did with the bodies.... And he smiled the whole time…

Susan D. Mustafa

Dismembered, the chilling true story of Baton Rouge serial killer Sean Vincent Gillis, will be in bookstores July 5. Gillis confessed to killing and mutilating eight women in the Baton Rouge area and is currently serving three life sentences at Angola. Written by Susan D. Mustafa and Sue Israel, authors of Blood Bath , which is the true story of serial killer Derrick Todd Lee story, this book is so disturbing that its publisher (Kensington Books) placed a warning label for readers on the back cover.

A book signing with Susan D. Mustafa and Sue Israel will be held July 30 at 6:00 p.m. at Barnes & Noble at Citiplace in Baton Rouge. The authors will present their thoughts on this killer, along with detectives who worked the case.

Read The Redman Writing Project interview with Susan here.
Purchase Dismembered online here.

Remembering the King of Greenwich Village

Maxwell Bodenheim: A flash of brilliance

Today is the birthday of Maxwell “Bogie” Bodenheim (May 26, 1892 – February 6, 1954), a poet and novelist who was known as the King of Greenwich Village Bohemians. Relatively obscure today, he was widely known internationally during the Jazz Age of the 1920s for his erotic poetry and prose and scandalous womanizing. But by the 1940s he was a homeless wino who wrote hasty poems and sold them for drinks. He was shot dead in 1954 by a mentally disturbed man involved in a sordid tryst with Bodenheim’s wife, whom he also killed. (More on Bodenheim follows.)

We’re marking the occasion of the birth of Bodenheim here with two of his poems:

Songs to a Woman
By Maxwell Bodenheim

                         I
You are like startled song-wings against my heart
Which flutters like a harp-string wounded
By too much quivering music.
You cover me with a blue dream-robe
Whose silk ripples out like imaged water ....
And when, for a moment, you leave,
I am a black sky awaiting its moon.

                       II
If I could be moon-light scattered out
Over the blowing dark-blue hair
Of kneeling, flowing crystal breezes
Breathing a litany of pale odors,
If I could be moonlight scattered out
Over the whispers meeting in your heart,
The marriage of our souls would be
No more complete than now.

                      III
Like a delicately absent-minded guest,
Your smile sometimes lingers after
Your lips are solemn.
And once I saw a tear in your eye
Playing hide-and-go-seek with some leaping, dimpled memory.
These things, to me, are like scattered perfume
Wavering down upon my heart.

                     IV
The struggle of a smile craving birth
Invades her little weeping faun’s face,
And even makes her tear-drops leap ....
She smiles as only grief can smile:
A smile like ashes caught within
A tiny whirlwind of light;
When the light goes, the ashes drape her face
Till even her lips seen grey.

                   V
Wave your veils to pallid gavottes,
Blow them on with dimly-spiced laughs,
And catch them breathlessly against your breast!
You have prayed too long in you sinking temple --
Night has come, with her fumbling release,
Her moment in which you may play with sad thoughts.
So, wave your veils to pallid gavottes,
Blow them on with dimly-spiced laughs
And catch them breathlessly against your breast.

“Songs to a Woman” by Maxwell Bodenheim, 1919. Public domain.

The Rear-Porches of an Apartment-Building
By Maxwell Bodenheim

A sky that has never known sun, moon or stars,
A sky that is like a dead, kind face,
Would have the color of your eyes,
O servant-girl, singing of pear-trees in the sun,
And scraping the yellow fruit you once picked
When your lavender-white eyes were alive. . . .
On the porch above you are two women,
Whose faces have the color of brown earth that has never felt rain.
The still wet basins of ponds that have been drained
Are their eyes.
They knit gray rosettes and nibble cakes. . . .
And on the top-porch are three children
Gravely kissing each others' foreheads
And an ample nurse with a huge red fan. . . .
The passing of the afternoon to them
Is but the lengthening of blue-black shadows on brick walls.

“The Rear-Porches of an Apartment-Building,” by Maxwell Bodenheim, 1917. Public domain.



Poet Maxwell Bodenheim and his wife, Ruth Fagan, having breakfast of tomato juice and sandwiches in their apartment on New York's Bleecker Street, awaiting eviction.

World-Telegram photo, 1952.

Born Maxwell Bodenheimer in Hermanville, Mississippi, near Vicksburg, the family moved to Chicago in 1900, when he was eight years old. Bodenheim had no formal education and was booted out of school by the age of 16. He enlisted in the Army in 1910, but was soon jailed and dishonorably discharged for insubordination after reportedly hitting an officer with the butt of his rifle because the officer ridiculed Bodenheim as a Jew.

Bodenheim met writer Ben Hecht in 1912 in Chicago and they maintained a love/hate relationship to the end. Together they founded The Chicago Literary Times. The Chicago literary group also included Carl Sandburg, Sherwood Anderson, and Edgar Lee Masters, among others. Bodenheim was dispatched to Greenwich Village as the magazine’s eastern correspondent, which, according to writer Jeff Kisseloff, set into motion Bodenheim’s long trail of “empty bottles and broken hearts.”

Ben Hect offers a glimpse into Bodenheim’s mania in Hect’s memoir, Letters from Bohemia . Here he describes a dinner party during which Bodenheim became irritable that he was not the center of attention. Writes Hect:

“Having emptied his tenth wineglass, he proceeded to eat it. He bit chunks of his fragile goblet, chewed and swallowed the bits of glass as if they were the finest of desserts... ‘Good God,’ someone said, ‘You're a poet, not a circus freak.’ ‘Every poet is both,’ Bodenheim answered aloofly... He continued to talk of poetry, and to recite some of his own latest work, holding the diners fascinated by the stream of blood and words from his mouth.”

Bodenheim wrote several novels: Georgia May, Replenishing Jessica, Naked on Roller Skates, the most well-known. They were, in the words of Ben Hect, “hack work with flashes of tenderness, wit, and truth in them, and some verbal fireworks in every chapter.”

In 1926, Bodenheim was hauled into court on obscenity for his novel Replenishing Jessica, whose heroine found "the simple feat of keeping her legs crossed…a structural impossibility." The case was dismissed, but the notoriety bolstered Bodenheim’s reputation and made his novel a bestseller.

A couple of years later he again achieved notoriety, this time as the Great Lover, when a series of spurned lovers attempted suicide after being rejected by Bodenheim.

By the early 1930s, Bodenheim quit writing novels altogether and became largely known as a character – the king of Greenwich Village bohemians. Soon the book royalties started drying up and by the start of the Second World War, he was homeless and a raging alcoholic.

Writes Hect: “The Greenwich Village Bodenheim had no allure for me. I preferred to remember the Chicago version. One rainy day I ran into Bogie on Broadway. His face was gaunt, most of his teeth were gone. But there were some things unchanged about him. He was wearing the same army overcoat, carrying the same worn and bulging brief case; and his eyelids still fluttered disdainfully when he spoke.”

Time magazine in 1952 described Bodenheim’s itinerate life at that time: “He flapped disconsolately around the Village resting up periodically in the Bellevue alcoholic ward, sleeping in gutters, hallways and subways.” It was during that period he took up a third wife, Ruth Fagan, a former teacher with a history of mental illness. They were inseparable as they tramped around the Village from one flop house to another and oftentimes Fagan would pick up men for a place to sleep. One such “friendship” with a mentally unstable dishwasher, Harold “Charlie” Weinberg, went terribly wrong.

After a night of heavy drinking with Weinberg, the Bodenheims accepted an invitation to go to Weinberg's room. What happened after that is uncertain. Weinberg may have tried to rape Ruth and Bodenheim may have intervened. Or Weinberg and Ruth may have agreed to have sex and Bodenheim, who had been asleep, may have woken up and objected. Either way, the result was that Weinberg shot and killed Bodenheim and then stabbed Ruth to death.

In the end, Bodenheim had written a total of ten books of verse and thirteen novels, as well as a partly ghost-written memoir called My Life and Loves in Greenwich Village. Once the envy of the literary world, the king of Greenwich Village, the Great Lover, today Bodenheim is rarely read and his work has nearly faded from memory.

Emily Hahn, author of an "informal history of bohemianism in America," attempted to sum up his life: "Bodenheim's novels were not immortal. It is for his life and death he is remembered. These were lurid in exactly the fashion Philistines felt they had a right to expect of Bohemians."

Recommended reading:
“MAD MAX: Death of a Bohemian King” by Alan Bisbort

Village Rogue: The poetic life of Maxwell Bodenheim

Passage about Maxwell Bodenheim by Ben Hecht, from Hecht's memoir, Letters from Bohemia (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co, 1964)

Naked on Roller Skates: A Tribute to Maxwell Bodenheim

Time magazine’s account of his murder:

Brains, Books and Boudreaux – A techno geek’s venture into children's literature



Stephanie Purser
Photograph by Chad Purser



 Author spices up Cajun lore with 'How Hot Sauce Came to Lousianne.'



Stephanie Purser is an elementary education teacher in Slidell, Louisiana with a passion for teaching, literature and technology and she has successfully combined all three with a new e-book, How Hot Sauce Came to Lousianne.

The story is a pourqoui tale, a fictional yarn explaining how something came about. In this case, Stephanie has created a very colorful Cajun whose over-the-top temper leads to the creation of a Louisiana staple.



“This initial book idea came at a time when I least expected it,” Stephanie explains. “I was actually participating at a teacher’s technology training. We were asked to brainstorm a word bank of Louisiana terms, and then use those words to create an e-book using new educational software. I had actually just finished a reading/writing study on pourquoi tales with my fourth graders, and decided to give my story that same pourquoi twist.



“It wasn’t until September of 2005—after evacuating due to Hurricane Katrina—that I began the process of transforming this rough, short story into a children’s book. The world’s spotlight was on our little part of Louisiana. Many became intrigued about our southern traditions and way of life. With all the culture and state information I had injected into my book, I felt that it was the right time to move forward.”

While still hoping to attract a publisher, Stephanie has not let the story sit idle. She published it as an e-book and continues using it today in the classroom as a teaching device.

Synopsis:

“I’m gonna fric-a-see a salesman, me!

Wit’ cayenne, tasso, and gra-vy!”

-Mista Boudreaux

Mista Boudreaux (BOO-dro) was a giant of a man, who stood well over seven feet tall. But as big-sized as he was, he was known for being twice as mean! And if there was one thing that really cooked his goose, it was when some poor ol’ body mispronounced his name.
In this fictional Cajun tale, three traveling salesmen make that very mistake. How Hot Sauce Came to Lousianne (buy it here) depicts several comical encounters between this ill-tempered crawfish farmer and each of the three traveling salesmen. Stirred together and peppered with Cajun lingo, these chance-meetings lead to the creation of “Lousianne Hot Sauce,” which turns out to be Boudreaux’s temper, all bottled up and “swishing ‘round on the inside.”
This 6-page porquoi twist written in Cajun vernacular makes How Hot Sauce Came to Lousianne a unique addition to any library. The intended read-aloud audience for this book is readers ages 5-10, although this clever story will be enjoyed by all ages.
Although the goal of the story is to entertain, it is often utilized by educators teaching units on the Southeast. Throughout the book, there are references to the state flower, bird, crustacean, etc. Furthermore, the story's setting and Cajun lingo paint a beautiful portrait of the bayou region of Louisiana.

The Redman Writing Project (RWP) recently caught up with Stephanie for an interview.

RWP: Tell us how you came to write How Hot Sauce Came to Lousianne.

Stephanie Purser – Creative writing has been a hobby of mine, and with my experience as an elementary educator, I’ve developed a true appreciation for children’s literature. How Hot Sauce Came to Lousianne started out as a short story written entirely in Cajun dialect, making it a fun read-aloud for adults to share with little ones, but difficult for children to read independently. After several challenging revisions, I think I’ve created a child-friendly story suitable for readers of all ages, while maintaining the Cajun narration experience.

RWP: You chose to publish How Hot Sauce Came to Lousianne as an e-book. Why did you decide to go that route?

Stephanie Purser – I actually had begun the publishing process with a popular children’s book publisher. We had gone through the revision process together, and I made the final changes that were requested. As we were about to take the last step and begin the publication process however, things fell through, as they often do. I decided that I would publish online to get my work “out there” and see if this book would be unique and interesting enough to draw a reading audience. Also, with the obvious increase in the use of mobile reading devices, I believe that more authors will consider publishing their works in this easily accessible format.

RWP: While on that subject, what impact do you think e-readers will have on the future of book publishing?

Stephanie Purser – I have already begun using iBooks and Kindle books, as have other teachers within my school and district. The availability and affordability of the devices and books has actually made it more cost effective for schools to use digital books. These books are often less expensive, able to be loaded on several devices, and their “pages” don’t rip or wear out. These advantages, combined with the portability of large amounts of reading material, make digital books a viable option for 21st century reading.

RWP: Had you written anything previous to How Hot Sauce Came to Lousianne?

Stephanie Purser – I had actually published Louisiana Educational Assessment Program (LEAP) standardized test practice material and I’m writing a how-to book about teaching with technology, but this is my first literary work.

RWP: I understand you are working on another book. Please tell us about it.

Stephanie Purser – Well, without giving too much away, I’ll say that the spice salesman who you met in How Hot Sauce Came to Lousianne attempts to take his new product on the road, when he ends up stranded among an eerie group of settlers in a remote part of the swamp. Don’t worry, though. It looks like the spice salesman may stir up this community and make something bitter into something tasty in the end—and profitable, too!

RWP: Let’s go back to when you were a kid, a teenager, did you write when you were younger? Did you enter any writing or poetry contests in school? What did you do to foster the writing bug?

Stephanie Purser – I actually wrote my first poem as a fourth grader. My teacher submitted it to the Baton Rouge The Advocate daily newspaper, where it was published. This was probably the jump-start to my aspirations of one day becoming a published author. In high school, I continued writing poetry and short stories while serving on the school newspaper’s staff.

RWP: What are your interests? How do you incorporate your interests into your writing or how have they influenced your writing?

Stephanie Purser – I am a teacher by occupation, but also by choice. I am passionate about finding “out-of-the-box” ways to present information and engage my students. I love to read just about anything, I’m goal-driven in all that I do, and I enjoy working with and learning about the latest technology.
I think I closely relate to the spice salesman in my book. He is an original thinker who comes up with an out-of-the-box solution to that mean Mista Boudreaux’s temper. And his sense of accomplishment at the end of the story reminds me of that competitive side of myself—that victorious feeling of accomplishing a goal.

RWP: List five of your favorite authors:

Stephanie Purser: I’m going to go with children’s book authors:
1. Rick Riordan
2. Lemony Snicket
3. Robert San Souci
4. Max Lucado
5. C.S. Lewis

RWP: List ten books you’ve read that you’ll never forget:

Stephanie Purser:
1. Diary of Anne Frank
2. Gone With the Wind
3. I Know this Much is True
4. The Five People You Meet in Heaven
5. To Kill a Mockingbird
6. A Child Called It
7. Where the Heart Is
8. Tara Road
9. Redeeming Love
10. The Bible

RWP: What are you reading right now?

Stephanie Purser – I am actually just beginning a juvenile fiction series that is very popular, called The Sisters Grimm, by Michael Buckley. These books are a twist of mystery and fairytale. I try to weave juvenile literature into my reading time so that I can keep abreast of the latest, most popular works available. This is advantageous to me as an elementary teacher and a children’s author, as well.

RWP: Where can people find your work and where can they follow you?

Stephanie Purser – My book can be found at www.amazon.com (here) and at http://www.bn.com/ (here). I plan to begin an author website in the near future, which will have activities for children, and lesson plan units for teachers to use along with my book.


More About The Author: Stephanie Purser currently teaches a class of fourth graders at Bonne Ecole Elementary School, and also leads the St. Tammany Parish School Board’s writing curriculum – “Write...from the Beginning” – and INTECH, an instructional technology course offered to teachers. A veteran educator with more than a decade of experience in Louisiana, Stephanie’s professional work and dedication to her field have been widely heralded across the state. She’s been named St. Tammany Parish Teacher of the Year; Louisiana Association of Computer Using Educators (LACUE) Educator of the Year; and PTA Educator of Distinction.

She resides in Slidell, Louisiana with her husband Chad Purser and their two children.

About The Photographer: Chad Purser is an aerospace engineer, but his passion is photography. He created the cover art for How Hot Sauce Came to Lousianne from an old boathouse he captured in his lens years ago. His photography has appeared on two other book covers, a CD album, and on a popular ABC sitcom. More of his images can be found at http://www.chadpurser.com/.

Copyright 2011 Donald G. Redman. All rights reserved. Photo copyright 2011 Chad Purser. Reprinted here with permission.

"when walking on earth is miracle enough" - a poem by Dennis Formento

when walking on earth is miracle itself
by Dennis Formento
(printed with permission)

when walking on earth is miracle itself
when cities are heat islands
where will you be, ten years on?
          if you know what's coming
          can you hope?
can you say so, can you say so
if you know what's coming
         and will anyone believe you?
         can you say so?
if you don't know what's coming and you act anyway
          is that hope? or the moment calling?

     maybe hope is
a work of many voices, all of them one voice
     the vision of many eyes, all of them one eye
when you see with one eye you see further
    “you live with your people as well as your ghosts.”

To keep your footing in the tidal wave,
     get used to the water,
take a ride down Carr Drive.

      Objects gathered on Carr Drive:
a wooden pelican, a weedy shrub grown in a concrete crevice,
          a child's life preserver,
a pair of pink goggles, a hard hat, and half a St. Joe brick.
          a morning glory twined around a tall weed
one nearly perfect pair of women's sandals.

Bridge up, bridge down, the train approaching, the expanse of water growing wider,
the acceptance of change, and the readiness to move on,
     strategy for survival-

maybe hope is the quality of non-expectation radiating love
struggle as if every second counts, or the line goes slack, & you're lost,

doesn't the earth create and maintain the conditions of life?
doesn't the moon rise and counter the steady sun?
where will you be, ten years from now?
where are you now?

what act restores the asylum
when walking on earth is miracle enough?

         Cities are heat islands
radiating deep into the night
         I woke up early,
quit driving by ten,
         the day bicycled under shade trees.

Is hope the desire
          for the arrival of
          the ideal state of things,
          the better day, tomorrow?
          Today
          Is.


(From “Blow,” commemorating the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, 8-29-07, commissioned by the St. Tammany Parish Arts Association.)

About Dennis Formento: He is a poet and performer with free jazz/free verse band, the Frank Zappatistas, and a publisher of Surregional Press. A New Orleans native, he now lives in Slidell, LA, with his wife, visual artist, Patricia Hart. His most recent book, Looking for an Out Place, was published in January of 2010 by FootHills Publishing of Kanona, NY (buy it here). His first cd of poetry and music has just been released, recorded with guitarist Ed Barrett as the duo Vecchio Frak (“old tail coat”).