Gumbo Ya Ya, Aurielle Marie’s stunning debut, is a cauldron of hearty poems exploring race, gender, desire, and violence in the lives of Black gxrls, soaring against the backdrop of a contemporary South. These poems are loud, risky, and unapologetically rooted in the glory of Black gxrlhood. The collection opens with a heartrending indictment of injustice. What follows is a striking reimagination of the world, one where no Black gxrl dies “by the barrel of the law” or “for loving another Black gxrl.” Part familial archival, part map of Black resistance, Gumbo Ya Ya catalogs the wide gamut of Black life at its intersections, with punching cultural commentary and a poetic voice that holds tenderness and sharpness in tandem. It asks us to chew upon both the rich meat and the tough gristle, and in doing so we walk away more whole than we began and thoroughly satisfied. Excerpt from “transhistorical for the x in my gxrls” What I mean is, this country is mine if only because from my mouth I spit its loam and unspun a noose. I won’t exploit the only metaphor they gave us willingly, and instead hunt for other vicious things to make a muse. I earned this country. I owe it nothing. With my infinite, infant hand, I manipulated a death sentence into a compound-complex one. from the umbilical, I bled a life worth writing down and in a century’s time, there will be another word created still for the weeping magic of this same story: a Black gxrl’s first breath.

A celebration of the food culture of New Orleans recounts the Wisconsin native's introduction to such regional classics as gumbo, po-boys, and red beans and rice.

A fascinating volume, Old Louisiana chronicles much of the state's history. Vignettes depict the early French settlers, the later Spanish rulers, and the rise and collapse of the great plantation era. Bringing to light old diaries, letters, and other rare sources, Saxon creates a sensitive and realistic portrait of this charming, colorful state and its people. The reader meets daring pioneers, hot-tempered duellists, aristocratic planters, rough-hewn river men, and Creole beauties. Both of these classic works include E. H. Suydam's haunting, detailed illus-trations, which bring Saxon's prose to life. Lyle Saxon (1891-1946) is renowned as one of Louisiana's foremost authors. He was the central figure in the state's literary community during the 1920s and 1930s, and was well-known as a raconteur and bon vivant. He divided his time between his house in New Orleans and a cottage on the Melrose Plantation near Nachitoches. Among his other works are Father Mississippi, Lafitte the Pirate, Children of Strangers, and Joe Gilmore and His Friends . He collaborated with Edward Dreyer and Robert Tallant on the perennial favorite Gumbo Ya-Ya . During the 1930s he headed the Louisiana WPA Writers Project, which produced the WPA Guide to Louisiana and the WPA Guide to New Orleans.