My New Orleans Ballads to the Big Easy by Her Sons, Daughters and Lovers

New Orleans Is a Pousse-Cafe In the beginning they called itL'Ile de Nouvelle Orleans. The city is entirely surrounded by water, and down through history its people have learned to be afraid of that water. High levees whose purpose is to protect New Orleanians from all that water border the city. They have not always done the job intended. The levee breaks and flooding after Hurricane Katrina provided just one more opportunity for a reaffirmation of their faith that water is the enemy, the very devil. Post-Katrina, I heard a woman from the Lower Ninth Ward say on CNN that the levee breaks in her neighborhood were the work of "our enemies." It was clear that she was not exactly sure who the instrument of the devil was in this case, possibly "terrorists," but it was equally clear that she was sure that the devil had a hand in it. Water for New Orleanians is a nasty business, embedded in the language, language with the mystical quality of calling up vivid images, emotion, sensation instantly. Old dirty water is an image poet James Nolan equates with home: ...we can alwaysgo feed the ducks nearthe solemn stone lionsat the City Park lagoonand siphon off someblack tadpole brothwhere swans preenin mean perfectionand stale bread crustsbob, bloat and sinkamong mosquito hawks. The late civil rights leader and poet Tom Dent associated water with images of evil, such as "riversnake," and bad history such as "...stuffed black mammies chained to Royal St. praline shops..." in his poem "Secret Messages," a blues ballad to jazz immortal Danny Barker. In her narrative poem "Madhouse," Brenda Marie Osbey, poet laureate of Louisiana, emphasizes through her narrator Felicity the need forVaudouprotection from water: "...The bahalia women are coming from around St. James carrying the bamba-root in their hands. Believe on those hands, and they will see you through seasons of drought and flood..." And Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have inspired new verses, such as these lines from a new poem, "The Good Shepherdess of Nether," by Andrei Codrescu and David Brinks working in concert: ...near the heady waters of the 17th Street Canalit's Sunday, August 29, 2005O Good Shepherdess of Netherthrow me a rope made of your best linenspull me up to your thighs. When a reporter forThe New York Timesshowed legendary New Orleans composer Allen Toussaint photographs of his flooded New Orleans residence, the musician's first glimpse of his home in the aftermath of Katrina, he was silent, studying them, then said: Good heavens, I'm getting drenched just looking at these pictures. The water is whipping my body. When New Orleanians are not in the midst of a disaster made by water, they generally prefer to forget that water and its dangers exist, turning their backs on some of the most gorgeous water views, already making carpetbagger real estate speculators salivate in the wake of Katrina. Check it out, the next time you visit, soon, when we are prepared to receive you in the style to which you are accustomed. You will find, for instance, that views of the Mississippi River from residences or restaurants are few and far between. All those flooded homes in Lakeview were without a view of the lake. The energizing electricity of this life on the edge, way down here at the end of the world, surrounded by all that water, is among the most seductive of the powers of our siren city. And its citizens and visitors alike are charged with creativity by zillions of conflicting ions continually bouncing up against and off each other. While New Orleanians know deep down that water is a source of both their charge and impending dJames, Rosemary is the author of 'My New Orleans Ballads to the Big Easy by Her Sons, Daughters and Lovers', published 2006 under ISBN 9780743293129 and ISBN 0743293126.