We had the honor of having Pam Houston read at The Columns Hotel a few weeks ago. She read from her book Contents May Have Shifted which consists of sections, all just a few pages, about her time spent in different places (and airplanes,) from Tibet to even New Orleans. Do yourself a favor and go check it out! Thank you, Pam!
Check out what our friends at New Orleans Review wrote about Pam Houston’s new book here.
Emma is a senior at Loyola and is majoring in English Writing. She read non-fiction at the November 6th reading.
“The Highlight of my Day”
3:23, approximate, and I am walking Freret St. home from school, looking at my feet and dry leaves against the concrete. That spot where a piece of sidewalk dips as I step on it is my favorite.
3:26 I glance right, as I am likely to do, and happen to meet eyes with a little SE Asian-American girl riding the school bus who, as she is likely to do, glances left. She waves to me. I wave back.
Two observations about eye-contact: One and great is an instant, self-generated assurance that eye-contact is occurring. Two and frustrating is the implicit indeterminateness of what the contact means to the other person and what its ramifications are for both persons as a unit.
3:26:30 – 3:38:45 The bus passes me, stops in traffic, as I pass it I glance again and a repeat of minute 3:26, now with a synchronized smile, like together we’ve been caught. The bus continues and passes me, stops in traffic, a repeat of the first clause of the prior line, now we both giggle.
One observation about smiling: unfeigned smiling is also insurpressible.
Haley is a senior at Loyola and is majoring in Religious Studies and Southern Studies, and is minoring in English. She read poetry at the November 6th reading.
“to meet death tall dark and handsome”
tic tac shellac
I dig you
a bruiser
a minted
slick back
lip tapped
so remember where I’m from
remember my middle name
because sooner
rather than later
I’ll be more that a chapped lip
skin flap
more that a hum between thighs
I’ll be high up and far away
and shelling out paper
to know what I don’t like
in the city
about myself
on a bridge
late at night
photo courtesy of press-street.com
Carolyn Hembree’s poems have appeared in Colorado Review, DIAGRAM, Gulf Coast, jubilat, Verse Daily and Witness, among other journals and anthologies. Kore Press published her debut collection, Skinny, in 2012. She teaches at the University of New Orleans and serves as Poetry Editor of Bayou.
“The Goner”
They’ll read something like it somewhere—
wronged one longed all along for the long gone wrong one
wool over this one’s eyes, steel wool
in that one’s mouth, a half-eaten blood orange
on the floor of some abode, some dust
devil of angel dust, where, half-senseless
in a half-slip, a drama mama fans herself
with an automatic, strung along
by this mind reader, that peter
meter, another string bikini’d string bean
who in a string of bad language unstrung
my mind—a gripe a gulp a growl a glint a goring
from Skinny (Kore Press 2012)
Like our blog, our twitter is a work in progress. We do have one though!
@1718NOLA
Here is a picture of Andy from the 1718 event on Tuesday, October 2nd.
Andy Stallings lives in New
Orleans and teaches creative writing at Tulane University. He is a
graduate of the Iowa Writers’ workshop, co-edits THERMOS, and focuses
otherwise on his children, Esme and Curran.
Below is one of Andy’s poems titled “They won’t tattoo you again”
They won’t tattoo you again, they’re finished – you can bury dear addiction, you can rise, you can rise
Sleepless, I’m shot up on gratitude Never so grateful as when I grieve Whoever’s near crying “No…no…”
Salt in the air broken by you child
I’m trying to construct a handshake: American boy, American contract, tears & spray paint in American palm
What you’ve asked I carry can’t care can’t / clarify
Love in its living ordinary
American love
candid & beery
in the vacuum where an airport / enters
His deepest fears ordinary one-bulb,
skin breaks out in a rash from sleeping, waiting, sleeping, waiting, waiting
Child on the day of your seizure / born to me
May this skin never sack with absence
nearby crying
“No…my baby…no, no”
And feels that [persons] around the world should hate one Should hate one’s children
Uncle, Grandmother, Father, Mother
Self
Not that we “abandon one another”: the abandoning
Skyllarr is a freshman English Writing major at Loyola. Skyllar read poetry at the October 2nd reading at the Columns Hotel.
“Untitled 3″
I’ve gained some unearned years.
Blessed? I feel not at times.
Intelligence is the curse
Unknown is safe for the mind.
I hold your thoughts in my mouth.
It chokes me to hear.
Stay young in thought
Hold your thought
Ive got too many in my ear.
Alex is a junior Mass Communications major at Loyola. Alex read poetry at the October 2nd reading at the Columns Hotel. 
“Slaughterhouse Rock”
Denim, basements, and liquor
My tits are out so I’m falling in love tonight.
1, 2, 3, 4 Slaughterhouse Rock,
I’ve got a will and I’ve got a way—
so let’s play this game.
The game, the game, the game,
The zippers change but game stays the same.
1, 2, 3, 4 Slaughterhouse Rock,
Come on and do the Slaughterhouse Rock with me—
till my back is chapped and my knees are cracked,
I’m not alive to tell you what’s happening.
1, 2, 3, 4 Slaughterhouse Rock,
Love looks different from the backseat.
Fingernails in leather seats, cigarette stains on your teeth, maybe
we’re Sid and Nancy.
Sid and Nancy. Sid and Nancy. Sid and Nancy. Sid killed Nancy.
Alan is a freshman English Writing major at Loyola. Alan read poetry at the October 2nd reading at the Columns Hotel. 
“Abyss”
We were drifting on the sea.
You looked in my eyes; your gaze fell upon me.
I opened my mouth; the words wouldn’t come out.
You mirrored my silence; the darkness grew around
Us.
The tide pulled us far from shore.
Your hand held on my arm just like before.
Our tears were still drying; the wind was stinging our eyes.
I looked to the ocean; we had lost our sight
To the
Abyss. It’s unforgiving.
It leaves us in the dark.
It keeps us close, apart.
