Slow Down with the Lyrical Poem 'Going Home: New Orleans' by Sheryl St. Germain

Slow Down with the Lyrical Poem 'Going Home: New Orleans' by Sheryl St. Germain

Thursday, 23 February, 2023

This poem by New Orleans poet Sheryl St. Germain sings of soft, quiet evenings and the joyous, seering details that make home feel like home.

It’s from the collection Let It Be a Dark Roux (published by the excellent Autumn House Press, a nonprofit literary publisher based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania). The poems share St. Germain’s impressions of growing up in New Orleans, the challenges of being a woman, and the heritage of Cajun/Creole culture.

In an interview, she said, ‘Writing — especially poetry writing — helps me to lay things out in all their complexity. Here is the thing in all its horror and ambiguity, and maybe there is a small insight that comes out of that. It helps me to imagine other sides of a story, imagine what might have been, honor grief and darkness.’

This poem is dedicated to her grandmother Theresa Frank.

 

Going Home: New Orleans — Sheryl St. Germain

  • Some slow evenings when the light hangs late and stubborn in the sky,
  • gives itself up to darkness slowly and deliberately, slow cloud after slow cloud,
  • slowness enters me like something familiar,
  • and it feels like going home.

  • It’s all there in the disappearing light:
  • all the evenings of slow sky and slow loving, slow boats on sluggish bayous;
  • the thick-middled trees with the slow-sounding names—oak, mimosa, pecan, magnolia;
  • the slow tree sap that sticks in your hair when you lie with the trees;
  • and the maple syrup and pancakes and grits, the butter melting
  • slowly into and down the sides like sweat between breasts of sloe-eyed strippers;
  • and the slow-throated blues that floats over the city like fog;
  • and the weeping, the willows, the cut onions, the cayenne, the slow-cooking beans with marrow-thick gravy;
  • and all the mint juleps drunk so slowly on all the slow southern porches,
  • the bourbon and sugar and mint going down warm and brown, syrup and slow;
  • and all the ice cubes melting in all the iced teas,
  • all the slow-faced people sitting in all the slowly rocking rockers;
  • and the crabs and the shrimp and crawfish, the hard shells
  • slowly and deliberately and lovingly removed, the delicate flesh
  • slowly sucked out of heads and legs and tails;
  • and the slow lips that eat and drink and love and speak
  • that slow luxurious language, savoring each word like a long-missed lover;
  • and the slow-moving nuns, the black habits dragging the swollen ground;
  • and the slow river that cradles it all, and the chicory coffee
  • that cuts through it all, slow-boiled and black as dirt;
  • and the slow dreams and the slow-healing wounds and the slow smoke of it all
  • slipping out, ballooning into the sky—slow, deliberate, and magnificent.
 

About Sheryl St. Germain

Sheryl St. Germain is a native of New Orleans, a poet, an essayist, and a fiber artist. She was a teacher for decades — The University of Texas at Dallas, The University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Knox College, Iowa State University, and Chatham University — and is the co-founder and former Director of the Words Without Walls Program, a program to teach creative writing in prisons, jails, and rehabilitation centers.

When she retired from teaching in 2019, she bought a sewing machine and learned how to quilt. In her artist statement, she wrote, ‘I am drawn to that which is broken and stitched. A life in a community of recovery has led me to see the force and beauty of the wounded who have survived. The stitched line like a scar. Striving to make music, in cloth or words, out of that which is broken.’

See more of Sheryl St. Germain’s writing and art onher website.

Top image courtesy of Pierre Jean Durieu/Shutterstock.

Want to keep up with our book-related adventures? Sign up for our newsletter!

keep reading

It's said there are good times and good stories. New Orleans promises both. From the everyday magic of beignets and jazz and voodoo to the once-a-year razzle-dazzle of Mardi Gras, The Big Easy is a serious party.
Forget everything you know about piling meat between slices of bread. New Orleans has a thing or two to teach you about making a sandwich — and some of the tastiest sandwiches are coming out of Turkey and the Wolf.
Take a virtual trip to New Orleans with a voodoo zombie fantasy, an over-the-top cookbook, an exploration of Katrina's impact on nine lives, a historical murder mystery, and a gorgeous family saga woven with sci-fi.

sharing is caring!

Can you help us? If you like this article, share it your friends!

our mission

Strong Sense of Place is a website and podcast dedicated to literary travel and books we love. Reading good books increases empathy. Empathy is good for all of us and the amazing world we inhabit.

our patreon

Strong Sense of Place is a listener-supported podcast. If you like the work we do, you can help make it happen by joining our Patreon! That'll unlock bonus content for you, too — including Mel's secret book reviews and Dave's behind-the-scenes notes for the latest Two Truths and a Lie.

get our newsletter
We'll never share your email with anyone else. Promise.

This is a weekly email. If you'd like a quick alert whenever we update our blog, subscribe here.

no spoilers. ever.

We'll share enough detail to help you decide if a book is for you, but we'll never ruin plot twists or give away the ending.

super-cool reading fun
reading atlas

This 30-page Reading Atlas takes you around the world with dozens of excellent books and gorgeous travel photos. Get your free copy when you subscribe to our newsletter.

get our newsletter
We'll never share your email with anyone else. Promise.
follow us

Content on this site is ©2024 by Smudge Publishing, unless otherwise noted. Peace be with you, person who reads the small type.