An Old Woman Bumped Her on Canal

University of New Orleans ScholarWorks@UNO University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations Dissertations and Theses Spring 5-13-2016 An Old Woman Bumped Her on Canal Nordette N. Adams University of New Orleans, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uno.edu/td Part of the African American Studies Commons, and the Poetry Commons Recommended Citation Adams, Nordette N., "An Old Woman Bumped Her on Canal" (2016). University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations. 2210. https://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/2210 This Thesis is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been brought to you by ScholarWorks@UNO with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this Thesis in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights- holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/or on the work itself. This Thesis has been accepted for inclusion in University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UNO. For more information, please contact [email protected]. An Old Woman Bumped Her on Canal A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the University of New Orleans in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Poetry By Nordette N. Adams B.A. Augusta State University, 1996 May 2016 © 2016 Nordette N. Adams ii Dedication In memory of my parents, Fannie Naomi Reddix Adams (1927-2007) and Norwood Edward Adams (1920-2012), also my brother Benjamin James Adams (1967-2012). For my daughter and son, DeEcheandria Delores Lawrence and Nathan Charles Norwood Lawrence: they have endured their mother as the intense woman at the keyboard or with the pen and pad whose name must be called two and three times before she hears it. iii iii Acknowledgments In her poem “Still Do I Keep My Look, My Identity . ,” Gwendolyn Brooks writes, “Each body has its art, . Each body has its pose.” Thank you to Carolyn Hembree, the chair of my thesis committee, for her dedication and patience during this process. I am equally grateful to her for her guidance and openness as a professor. She has held her pose of receptivity to my poses, both experimental and formal, in my work, always encouraging me to embrace my own style and voice. Thank you to the other members of my committee, Kay Murphy and Dr. Niyi Oshundare. Both have given me their time and critiques. I have learned from each through their different approaches to craft and feel honored to have had them read my poems. The Creative Writing Workshop at the University of New Orleans offers the only MFA program in the New Orleans Metropolitan Area, and I am blessed to have had the opportunity to be a part of its community. I thank John Gery as well for encouraging me and offering his knowledge and critiques over the years. I will forever be grateful to my deceased mother, Fannie Reddix Adams, who launched me on my voyage in this art, and to my father, Norwood E. Adams, also deceased. They both supported my completing a graduate degree and my writing. Finally, I thank my dear friend, the late Steven Hart, a fiction writer and journalist who died unexpectedly in 2015. No one pressured me more to finish a book of poetry and other writing than he did. At some point in our lives, all writers need a push. iv iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface: A Gathering of Selves ....................................................................................................... 1 I. The Sankofa I Trace with My Forefinger ..................................................................................... 14 Vesuvius ........................................................................................................................................ 16 On the Occasion of Shirley Temple’s Death ................................................................................ 17 At Sister Erzulie’s Boutique ......................................................................................................... 18 The Addams Family ...................................................................................................................... 19 OMG. Read Dream on Monkey Mountain .................................................................................... 20 The Profile Posters ........................................................................................................................ 22 II. Women of Status ........................................................................................................................... 24 NOLA ........................................................................................................................................... 26 A Tour of Non-Tourist Spots, 2007 .............................................................................................. 27 From Seven Houses ...................................................................................................................... 29 2435 Pauger Street .................................................................................................................... 29 76 Audubon Place ..................................................................................................................... 30 For Sale: 3104 Audubon Street (Usher Board Christmas Party) .............................................. 31 My Ride Down Tchoupitoulas, 2015 ............................................................................................ 32 But the Pelicans, Though .............................................................................................................. 33 Walk Lightly Out the Door ........................................................................................................... 36 III. Second Life Blues ......................................................................................................................... 38 Boundaries .................................................................................................................................... 40 Cairn of Women (1975) ................................................................................................................ 41 Hidden Tracks Playlist .................................................................................................................. 42 2006: Noises from the Coffin ................................................................................................... 42 2008-2012: Tunnels to the Attic ............................................................................................... 45 2013: More than 500 Channels, A Million MP3s .................................................................... 46 2014: Interminable Winter ........................................................................................................ 47 2014: Spring Like a Spring Is Springing .................................................................................. 48 September on the Patio ................................................................................................................. 49 Mother Always Accommodates the Dead .................................................................................... 50 An old woman bumped her on Canal ........................................................................................... 51 Vita ................................................................................................................................................ 53 v Poetry is an act of meditation and improvisation, and need is the motor that propels the words down the silent white space. —Yusef Komunyakaa vi Preface: A Gathering of Selves My mother suffered from Alzheimer’s disease and died in 2008 at eighty-one. She was the family historian. Since her death, relatives have conferred that title to me. They perceive me to continue her work because I’m usually the one asking questions such as, “Do you know the story about the great aunts, the psychics?” or “Did you hear that story about the sister who could pass for white who the brothers (my mother’s grandfather and his brothers) had to abandon on the train?” Sometimes I am the only local family member who remembers a particularly strange family tale until some senior relative visits and confirms the story. My family sees then that I listened to my mother, that I keep elders’ memories alive. I recall my mother’s stories about the women of our family most of all. Long before I had ever heard of Alice Walker or her book In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens, I tended to recall these women’s narratives, wanting to know more about them. When I attended a family reunion for my mother’s side in the late 1970s, I hoped to learn more about my great-grandmother, but her lineage was absent from the tree. A male cousin had traced only the paternal side of my grandmother’s family, so I listened eagerly when an aunt asked a question about my great-grandmother during the main gathering. A great- uncle shouted, “Oh, we don’t want to talk about her. She was mean.” I bristled. Before scientists discovered the bones of a “First Eve” in Africa, before they declared that all women receive mitochondrial DNA from their mothers that may be traced to an ancient African woman, I pondered my connection to a first mother. Undoubtedly, I am oversimplifying a complex topic in the name of poetry,

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