Patrice Melnick: Louisiana Poet, Festival Muse

Patrice Melnick: Louisiana Poet, Festival Muse

by

 Natalie Parker-Lawrence

      Guest blogger for Rebecca Elswick

            Grand Coteau, Lousiana, is a town where the sidewalks are flat even with the streets, no need for curb cuts, no need for curbs.  And somehow, without cement barriers, the houses, the churches, the shops, and the farms, welcome lost strangers with haphazard directions, inquisitive visitors from far away, residents from the coast fleeing hurricanes, and those who seek serenity here on religious pilgrimages.  Writers ease their cars into the town, their tires crunching little rocks as they roll up to savor the next place of inspiration. 

             Patrice Melnick lives and writes in this little town, across the highway from Sunset, down Interstate 49, at Exit 11, between Lafayette and Opelousas.  She grows flowers and throws birdseed for creatures outside her breakfast room window.  Her cat and her husband, Olan, complement her steps. 

            Her friends, including famous writers (Darrell Bourque, Leslie D!, Tony Daspit, Clare L. Martin, Forrest Roth, Xero Skidmore, Christopher Shipman, Murray Shugars, Lana Wiggins, Reggie Scott Young, Desiree Dallagiacomo, Toi Derricotte, Barb Johnson, Latasha Witherspoon, Timothy Seibles) and former students like me, wish we could spend one month a year in the writer’s house behind her house (we would get so much accomplished!).

            Patrice, a muse to many even though they have only known her through computer connections, invites writers come to bask in the tranquility of Grand Coteau. Artists in the inspiring gallery, forum, theatre, all under the roof of her shop, relish the opportunities to learn to read aloud, to love the sound of their voices, and to share the gifts of their talents with aspiring writers.  She organizes the musicians, the authors in the schools, the community writing workshops, the book signings, the drive-by poetry performances, the book fair, the independent films, the open mic nights, meme en francais!

            Recently, Patrice encouraged others from her community to recite stories from their pasts.  The natives and residents of Grand Coteau recollected narratives, filmed for posterity, about school, family life, and work in stories that are “funny or sad; angry or joyful.”  Some might involve the yearly 7-mile Yard Sale during the annual Festival of Words, this year from October 30 to November 3.

            The Executive Director of the Festival of Words (Cultural Arts Collective) since 2010, Patrice also works on projects for her community as well as personal ones as the proprietor of Casa Azul Gifts, the Community Arts Education Program Director for Frederick L’Ecole Des Arts, adjunct professor of English for the University of New Orleans, associate professor of English for Xavier University, and writer in poetry and nonfiction.  She spent from 1985 to 1987 in the Central African Republic as a Peace Corps volunteer where she taught English as a Foreign Language. She earned her MFA from the University of Alaska in 1990.

             Her first book, Turning Up the Volume (Xavier Review Press), was published in 2005.  Her essays have been published in many journals.  Here is the end of an excerpt of one of her essays from her Peace Corps days, “Water,” published in Drunken Boat:

            As we walked, I wondered where we would find water again.  Whose water

            would we ask for, cool water, drawn up from a hundred meters through the

            ground.  Would it again be from people who distrusted us, but gave out of

            obligation, for no one in the desert is refused water. Perhaps water would be

            given by a woman who had carried it on her head.  We would have to accept

            water again.  What could we give?  A song? I felt the sun burn like a pair of

            copper eyes.

            As a woman, Patrice desires the comfort of friends and freedom from chronic illness.  She has two publications forthcoming, Contraband Poboy: From Diagnosis Back to Life (Catalyst Book Press, June 2012) and The Spirit of Grand Coteau (ULL Press, November, 2012). She writes:

            We were all women in this office and we often discussed our personal lives. 

            I thought about paraplegics, parents of terminally ill children, individuals

            trailed with a history of abuse as children, families with a suicidal family

            member.  I would be hard-pressed to say that I would exchange my HIV

            diagnosis for someone else’s problems.  I can’t imagine anyone exchanging

            her problems for HIV. People adjust to their situations: Louisianans live

            with hurricane threats and Californians expect earthquakes.  We own pain

            like emotional real estate and it contributes to our identities.  Would you

            exchange your problems for mine?  People live most comfortably with the

            burdens they know best and fear the unfamiliar ones. 

            As a writer and teacher, Patrice wishes for people to remember their best, though fearful, stories as well as their ordinary ones because that recounting on paper and into the air documents the vulnerability, the struggles, the pain, the release, and the peace that all of us seek.    

            As a neighbor, she wants to record the historical memories of the people of St. Landry’s parish in southern Louisiana.

            As a friend, Patrice does not ask for more than this.  And yet, she celebrates the abundant richness of all the stories of all the people who wander into her small town, offering to share their gift of words with a beautiful writer who lives to receive them.

             

           

Don't forget this is a blog tour, so be sure to visit the upcoming blogs. Here's the schedule!

Tour Date: Wed. June 27 - Check Out Today's Featured Blogs!!

Blog Name: http://charitywrites.blogspot.com 
Title: Charity's Writing Journey "Hospitality, Welcome to the South"

Blog Name: Sweet Music on Moonlight Ridge

Title: "Evolution AND Creationism: The Birth of a Southern Novel"

Tour Date: Th. June 28

Blog Name: Ruminations and Reflections

Title: "Patrice Melnick: Louisiana Poet, Festival Muse"

Blog Name: Holly's Narrative Dream

Title: "Pictures and Words"

Tour Date: Fri. June 29

Blog Name: Musings & Meanderings: Thoughts on Life and Healing

Title: "The Flavors of My Childhood"

Blog Name: The Full-Bodied (Book) Blog

Title: "Not Your Storybook Southern Belle"

Tour Date: Sat. June 30

Blog Name: Delani Bartlette’s Travel Blog

Title: "Changing The Past, Inventing The Future"

Blog Name: Emily Kennedy, Author

Title: "Southern Gentlemen"

Tour Date: Sun. July 1

Blog Name: Ryder Islington, Author

Title: "New Orleans Caulbearers"

Blog Name: A Penny and Change

Title: "Change...as the moon goes on shining"

Tour Date: Mon. July 2

Blog Name: Zetta's House of Random Thoughts

Title: "Texas Tornadoes and Other Memories"

Blog Name: Reflections of a Mississippi Magnolia

Title: "A (Southern) Life in Poems"

Tour Date: Tue. July 3

Blog Name: A Penny's Worth

Title: "Books & Business & Reality: No magic bullet"

Blog Name: The Novelette

Title: "Southern Living with True Grit"