Lexington Books Summoning Our Saints: The Poetry and Prose of Brenda Marie Osbey

Summoning Our Saints: The Poetry and Prose of Brenda Marie Osbey celebrates and illuminates the poetry and prose of one of the South's and the nation's most notable writers. A native of New Orleans and a former poet laureate of Louisiana who served magnificently in that function during the dark days after Hurricane Katrina, Osbey has summoned up a magical, beguiling, sometimes chilling and appalling portrait of the myriad chapters of New Orleans, Southern, and hemispheric history. Her dazzling narratives offer apertures into desire, death and remembrance, often through the voices of neglected and abused citizens. The essays in this collection examine Osbey's essays and poetry collections, situating them within greater traditions of African American women's writing, blues music, and West African religious traditions and Catholicism. The chapters are punctuated throughout with Osbey's own reflections on her work and bring a long-needed and appreciative critical focus to a great artist, elucidating her contributions to our common cultural heritage. The book examines Osbey's meditations on topics such as colonization, the African diaspora, the circumCaribbean, and contemporary parallels between Europe and the United States to showcase the ways in which they add valuable new insights to transnational studies. Review Including a detailed chronology of its subject, this collection of essays on poet Brenda Marie Osbey (Africana studies, Brown) will be invaluable to those interested in poetry and African American studies. The collection comprises 11 critical essays. Lowe provides a detailed biographical and critical introduction, and his opening essay on Osbey's poetry collections Ceremony for Minneconjoux and In These Houses sets a high standard, one his fellow contributors meet. Thadious Davis examines History and Other Poems with authority, looking at Osbey's writing in Southern and African American traditions. Dolores Flores-Silva and Keith Cartwright, who previously worked together on a study of Jesmyn Ward, place Osbey in the internationality of the Gulf of Mexico with attention to All Saints and All Souls. Daniel Cross Turner considers Osbey in conjunction with fellow poets Natasha Trethewey and Yusef Komunyakaa. In mapping and examining Osbey's poetry and prose, all the contributors recognize the centrality of Osbey's native New Orleans in her writing, with the city's pasts intersecting with the present and its extensive intercultural borders extending beyond the continental US. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers.--CHOICE As Lowe makes clear in his comprehensive and informative introduction, Brenda Marie Osbey's poetry and essays are rooted in West African, Caribbean, and French cultural traditions, practices, and beliefs that intersect in New Orleans. To read her poetry is to undergo a pleasurable possession that allows readers to commune with the dead and to rethink how history was made. This collection stands as a supplement to Osbey's work. In addition to an introduction that is both biographical and analytical, Lowe is joined by a cadre of poets and scholars whose essays parse out the complex nuances and rich contours of Osbey's poetry.--Tara T. Green, University of North Carolina at Greensboro John Lowe has done the deft work of introducing new readers to Brenda Marie Osbey's poetry and clarifying it to others all at once. Indeed, Lowe's work is a summoning in its own right. He calls forth the best of our writers and critics to reveal the beauty of one of our most revered poets.--Dana Williams, Howard University What a delightful treat! This collection of eleven essays from some of the most important critics working in African American literary and cultural studies enters into lively conversation with the poetry and prose of Brenda Marie Osbey. In essays that alternately explore Osbey's technical mastery, innovative approaches to line, stanz