Bayous, Beignets, and Beads: Haiku of Louisiana
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.
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