NEWS RELEASE

Contact: David West (west@nsula.edu )
News Bureau
Northwestern State University
Natchitoches, LA 71497
(318) 357-6466

10/23/2006

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NATCHITOCHES -New Orleans poet Everette Maddox is remembered in a book co-edited by Northwestern State University Associate Professor of English Julie Kane. The book, Umpteen Ways of Looking at a Possum, was also edited by Grace Bauer of the University of Nebraska. The book is published by the Xavier Review Press.

Kane will moderate a panel, "More than a Mess: Tributes to Everette Maddox" at the Louisiana Book Festival, which will be held Saturday at the State Capitol in Baton Rouge.

Maddox, who taught poetry at University of Alabama, Xavier University, and University of New Orleans, was known to many as the organizer of a long-running series of open mike poetry readings at the Maple Leaf Bar in New Orleans. His own poetry appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review and other literary magazines before his untimely death at age 44 in 1989.

Among his poetry collections are The Thirteen Original Poems (1976), The Everette Maddox Song Book (1982), Bar Scotch (1988), and the posthumous collections American Waste (1993) and Rette's Last Stand (2004). Archival collections devoted to Maddox are located at Xavier University of Louisiana and the Historic New Orleans Collection.

Both Bauer and Kane knew Maddox. Among the contributors to the book are Martha McFerren, Ralph Adamo, Maxine Cassin, Peter Cooley, Louis Gallo, Ellen Gilchrist, and a host of others connected with the New Orleans literary scene.

"Everette's story touched many people. He was brilliant, funny and kind," said Kane. "Many people tried to help him, but something about him seemed to be doomed. It was like he had a kind of fate that couldn't be prevented. His life still haunts people who knew him. Everette inspired people to write about him and try to make sense of what happened."

Bauer and Kane began working on the book three years ago. Bauer approached Kane about working on the book and they began gathering material on Maddox through an ad in a poetry magazine along with online postings.

"When I was a doctoral student at LSU, I thought I would do a critical biography of Everette, but my advisor said he wasn't well known enough outside of New Orleans," said Kane. "This gave me an opportunity to work on something I had wanted to do for a long time."

For more information on the Louisiana Book Festival, go to www.louisianabookfestival.org.

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