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Frogpond 47.3 • 2024

Museum of Haiku
Literature Award

Haiku & Senryu

Essay 1 - Haiku of Louisiana

Essay 2 - Haiku of Care

Essay 3 - Diane di Prima

Essay 4 - John Brandi

Essay 5 - Brazilian Haicai

Interview - Kat Lehmann

Haibun

Renku

Book Reviews

Haiku Society of America

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Bayous, Beignets, and Beads: Haiku of Louisiana

by Charles Trumbull

Bayous, Beignets, and Beads: Haiku of Louisiana
(complete PDF version)

from A Field Guide to North American Haiku by Charles Trumbull

Six years ago, in our Field Guide series, we digressed a bit from our standard topical review of haiku and focused instead on a specific geographic area: the U.S. state of Maine. Preparing that episode was so pleasurable and the result was so well-received (especially Down East!), we decided to try that approach again, this time focusing on Louisiana poets and topics.

At least to haiku poets, Louisiana consists of two almost equal halves, the rural heartland—Louisiana is unofficially known as “The Bayou State”—and the urban, world-class city of New Orleans (“The Big Easy”).

The heartland of Louisiana is the large area along the Mississippi and west of the river called Atchafalaya (14 parishes) and the overlapping Acadiana region (21 parishes) in the south and southwest of the state. Atchafalaya is:

among the most culturally rich and ecologically varied regions in the United States, home to the widely recognized Cajun culture as well as a diverse population of European, African, Caribbean and Native-American descent. ... It is filled with twisting bayous, rivers and America’s largest river swamp. There are fields of sugar cane and cotton, ancient live oaks and towering cypress. Alligators, raccoons, and even bears roam the lands while 270 species of birds take to the skies. From the waters come catfish, shrimp, oysters and the crawfish that make the Atchafalaya so well known.

[essay continues for several more pages] . . .

. . .

Trumbull, Charles. "Bayous, Beignets, and Beads: Haiku of Louisiana from A Field Guide to North American Haiku." Frogpond 47.3, Autumn, 2024, 86-113.

This excerpt inclues the first page of the essay: page 86. The complete essay includes pages 86-113. To read the complete essay, click on the link to the PDF version:

Bayous, Beignets, and Beads: Haiku of Louisiana
(complete PDF version)

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