HUSTLE + BLOW, A SONG by Brett Evans with Skin Verb

Please click below to listen:

hustle+blow_mp3

STATEMENT

Poet Brett Evans lives in the Bayou St. John neighborhood of New Orleans. This bayou, which runs into the middle of the city, is home to nutrias, pelicans, and flying fish, and was a Native American trail and portage.

New Orleans is made of water. Its streets are boat decks that dry and we walk them until we get rained on with more water and mimosa blossoms.

The theme of the 1984 World’s Fair in New Orleans was water as the source of all life. Huh. Poetry at times like this seems to be a paper bullet flying at a toxic giant — but we simply must. We must for the reasons we know: awareness, catharsis. And then we load the tool basket and head down to the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program and pitch in some more with our hands.

(Poets for Living Waters, June 28, 2010)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Brett Evans is the author of Slosh Models (Factory School, 2009). and Ready-to-Eat Individual [with Frank Sherlock] (2006, Lavender Ink Press) and After School Session with Brett Evans (Buck Downs Books/subpress, 2001). He is a founding member of the carnival microkrewe‘tit-Rex and a member of the band Skin Verb.