If there is such
a phenomenon as a post-modern troubadour, poet Darrell Bourque, former poet
laureate of Louisiana from Churchpoint, Louisiana, is that man. In his latest work,
Megan's Guitar and Other Poems from Acadie, his lyrics sing about the Acadie
that is, as a friend who attended his reading yesterday said, "his
history." A writer unafraid to be called a poet of place, Darrell weaves
the culture of south Louisiana, its ancestral and present-day characters,its artists like Acadie's
own Elemore Morgan, its rituals and landscape into a tapestry of rich textures.
The introduction
to Megan's Guitar is written by Barry Ancelet, Granger and Debaillon Endowed
Professor of Francophone Studies at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, whose
alter ego Jean Arceneaux is a poet, playwright, songwriter and storyteller. Ancelet
explains that Megan's Guitar was born in his living room when
Darrell viewed a sewn silk art piece depicting a woman playing a guitar by
Megan Barra. Darrell often uses the ekphrastic technique in his poetry –
viewing art to inspire a poetic response – and was moved by the beautiful silk
art piece that provides the cover and title of his latest book of poetry to
research his Acadian past and explore in sonnet form, the vision and struggles
of his ancestors.
Megan's Guitar is divided into three sections, Acadie Tropicale, poems
about postmodern Acadia; Megan's Guitar, a section telling how song is "catalyst
and clarifier" of history; and Acadie
du nord, the northern Acadian experience.
In the section, Megan's Guitar, Darrell writes in the title poem that "Songs are in
fingers as they are/in heart and brain and belly and feet…" and his sonnet
reflects those songs in his own fingers, heart, brain, belly, and feet, moving felicitously
like a medieval troubadour "inside this trembling world of ours." Although
the section is short, it resounds with the chords of Darrell's personal history
as a descendant of the migrating Acadians who survived the Grand Derangement. However, in "Vanitas," he writes about an
experience common to all of us: "We are always slinking, always wedded/to
everything before and after us, even as every rage/inside us is without consent
quelled and put to bed."
I had read "Before
the Sparrows Awakened" in the section entitled Acadie Tropicale, but it
is a poem that resonates again and again with me and illuminates one of the
cultural rituals that took place in Darrell's childhood: "Before daylight
we were awakened by the voices/of my aunts in my mother's kitchen./As soon as
my father and my uncles left for work,/they appeared like gauzy apparitions/and
shadowed our backdoor. The sky outside was but a dimly lighted sheet/and the
sparrows were still drowsing lazily/in the upper branches of the trees./These
birds were rhymes for who we were/in our beds; still, but being awakened/slowly
by the voices and the perfume creeping/into the woodwork as water plumped/the
dark, rich grounds in the little blue pot/stirring inside another pot on the
stove./The anxious thoughts these women carried inside,/they put out on the
table/along with whatever was left from yesterday:/sweet dough pie or fig
cakes,/gateau sirop or des Oreilles de cochon./On this fare
they would break fast/and whatever gleamed in their lives or in lives/close by,
they lighted the room with./This hour was something they had taken as
theirs,/and it was their job to start the day." The imagery in this poem is energetic and picturesque and illustrates how Darrell often pays tribute to his generous and self-effacing kinspeople in his songs about Acadie without making declarative statements about those two familial qualities.
Many of the
poems in Acadie du Nord feature Joseph
Broussard, dit Beausoleil, who was the leader of the first group of Acadians to
arrive in New Orleans in 1765. He also led resistance fighters against the
British in Nova Scotia from their deportation to his departure for Santo Domingue.
He arrived in the Attakapas area of south Louisiana in 1765 and was among three
designated leaders of the Acadians. Notes about the poems featuring Beausoleil
are included in the concluding section of Megan's
Guitar and represent the intensive
research that Darrell did before writing his wonderful sonnets.
The lonely
figure of Evangeline appears in Darrell's sonnet entitled "Evangeline
Speaks," and he captures the poignancy of lost love in lines about her
faithfulness to a man whom she "may or may not have held dear …but I was
never what they were, never a mother,/never even married…never with the women
who foraged for medicinal teas/to save a spouse in a wild land no one knew, or
nursed a child, never smothered/by want or dread….I was always covered by right
image and right sound, measured neatly in what others wanted to believe."
Darrell, a personal
friend who remains my mentor in poetry, has written a masterpiece in Megan's Guitar, and I was sorry I wasn't at his reading yesterday at ULL
when he sang his songs to take those of us who have Acadian lineage back to our
origins – and to transport those who were not of Acadian ancestry into further
exploration and appreciation of a rich and magnificent history and culture. He
has accomplished in each illuminating sonnet the two components which Robert
Frost once touted as indicative of good poetry: wisdom and delight.
P.S. The
stunning photograph of Darrell by John Slaughter in the end pages is a portrait
that captures Darrell's strength of character and poetic sensibilities. In the photograph he looks like a
French imperator! Bravo, Darrell –
the victory is yours!
