Download the PDF
version of this article if you wish to view it or print it out
with the same formatting as appears in the print version of the
Rocky Mountain Review.
(Requires Adobe Acobat
Reader.)
Norman R. Shapiro. Creole Echoes: The Francophone
Poetry of Nineteenth-Century Louisiana.
Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2004. 234p.
Cécile Accilien
Columbus State University
Creole Echoes: The Francophone Poetry of
Nineteenth-Century Louisiana problematizes
and brings to light the complexity of the term Creole through poetry. This book
inserts itself not only in the Francophone literary tradition but contributes
to American and Southern studies. As the field of American Studies is being
redefined and revisited, this collection will be an important testimony to the
place of Louisiana Francophone literary traditions in the field of American
Studies.
The collection depicts the rich cultures of
Louisiana, a mix of African, European, and Native Americans influences. The
volume truly represents Gary B. Mills' definition of a Creole being
"anyone who says he[/she] is one." The term "Creole," an
elusive term to say the least, has been and continues to be the subject of
debates where issues of race, class, and culture intersect. What is obvious and
interesting though is that the issue of Creole is not black and white.
Louisiana is a crossroads in American and Caribbean
cultures both geographically and historically. Long before terms like
transnationalisation and globalisation became buzz words, Louisianians were
living in a transnational context, as is evident in the poems through the
diversity of their themes and through the influences of styles and languages.
Louisiana's history of wars, revolutions, rebellions, and migration testifies
to its importance in world history and in U.S. history. Louisiana plays a
crucial role in the expansion of the United States with the Louisiana Purchase.
It is truly one of the most unique states in the U.S. This volume presents the
richness of Francophone Louisiana's cultural and literary history, one that is
not well enough known to scholars outside of Francophone Studies. This
anthology is an avant-goût (a
foretaste), an appetizer of sorts, inviting the reader on a journey to explore
the great richness of Louisianan/Southern literature that has not yet been
discovered by the English-speaking public. This collection serves as a poetic
trip for scholars and lovers of history and culture. The trip will take you to
real places such as the bayou with its flora and fauna, to various places along
the Mississippi, to the levee, to the wilderness, and to Jackson Square. By the
time you are done reading the volume, you will want to physically go on a New
Orleans journey to experience this richness of cultures.
The volume will add to translated works such as Les
Cénelles: A Collection of Poems by Creole Writers of the Early Nineteenth
Century by Gleason Adams and Régine
Latortue. This collection of poems leads the reader through a historical
journey, for the poems between the lines tell the stories and history of
Louisiana and its connections to Saint-Domingue (Haiti), Cuba, Martinique,
Canada, and France. The collection brings together the works of thirty-two
poets from different backgrounds, including Michel Seligny, Camille Thierry,
Georges Dessommes, Charles Testut, and Louis Boise. Although there is only one
woman represented, Léona Queyrouze, this is more than likely due to the fact
that women's poetry from this era went largely unpublished.
This bilingual edition informs the reader about each
poet's background. From love poems to social protests, poverty, abolition of
slavery, to poetry about fables and animal tales, it presents the social,
political, religious, and artistic life in New Orleans in the 19th century. The
volume is important as well for those who question the validity of the Creole
languages as being literary languages. Jules Choppin, a first-generation
immigrant whose parents were both French and who was a professor of French
language and literature at Tulane University, wrote some fables in Louisianian
Creole. In "The Oak and the Reed," he writes,
Pas fait gros vene, ain jour ta vini plat;
Gros papa lion ça peur ain ti dérat....
[Don't go make boast, one day you go lay flat:
Big Papa lion, him scared of little rat....] (22-23)
What Shapiro has captured is the essence of
Francophone Louisiana poetry. He remains true to the poems and the poets while
translating the richness of language and style. He portrays the "Creoleness"
of the poets and the poems through the "creolized" language and
culture to form a "Louisianian" quality where everything mixes
together into a true gumbo culture, which is what Louisiana truly is. But
Louisiana then and now, is also very segregated. The culture/s may be mixed
fundamentally but the legacy of slavery remains in racial segregation.
Nevertheless, the reader is invited to explore Louisiana's complex cultures and
proclaim:
O belle Louisiane, ô vatses cyprières,
Où m'égaraient jadis des courses solitaires;
Où j'allais, tout enfant, ainsi qu'en un saint lieu,
Ouïr, déjà rêveur, la grande voix de Dieu!
Où j'écoutais, ravi, de vagues harmonies;
Où je m'entrenais avec des doux Génies!
O mon ciel d'Occident, d'où tombait autrefois
La poésie en pleurs dans les blonds lis des bois!
[O fair Louisiana! O you vast
Cypress groves where, alone, in days long past,
My footsteps strayed -- a dreamer then, although
But a mere lad! -- and where I used to go,
As in some holy place, a-wandering, awed,
To listen to the mighty voice of God;
Where I would hear vague harmonies, and let
Myself converse, in sacred tête-à-tête,
With gentle Spirits! O my New World sky,
Where poetry once rained with tearful cry.]
(56-59)
|
