Côte Blanche

by Martha Serpas

In this, her first book, Martha Serpas succeeds brilliantly in fulfilling the calculations of the alchemists, those great hermetic artists of medieval Europe. Côte Blanche deliberately and beautifully weds the secular to the divine in poems which, steeped in the Cajun landscape of Serpas’s Louisiana, prickle with exhilarating sensuality. Through its votive offerings to a God who is all too aware of the longings and aspirations of humankind,Côte Blanche becomes a testament to a new, personal belief that is simple yet breathtaking in its reach.

Genres: Poetry

70 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2002

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Grand Bois

South Lafourche High School, 1983

In twelve minutes we could drive the shortcut--
Bayou Lafourche toward Grand Caillou--
My high school friends in an econo Ford.

We saved--more than time, holding our eyes
On the trailing center line--ourselves
From the futures chasing us down. Once

We blew a curve and dived into the marsh.
I saw then what I see now: the young dead
Along the tidewash--miles short of their true ends--

Straying from us, their backs turned,
Their shoulders verging into the haze.
Above the treeline their names--some were friends,

Some were bodies in the halls. Rows of faces,
Rows of cane, the narrow curves and arched moss--
Time we saved, forgot, then lost.

I have been reading Louisiana poets for a few years now and only now do I pick Martha Serpas--a quintessential Louisiana poet influenced by Elizabeth Bishop. I do not mean she is second-rate Bishop; no, Serpas is a first-rate, universal poet in her own right. This is an excellent debut, with none other than Harold Bloom pissing pedantic nonsense in an obviously rushed foreword he probably wouldn't remember writing. Bloom's approval is superfluous; Serpas' work stands on its own merits and merits reading. I have already picked up her second collection The Dirty Side of the Storm.

Postcard to My Mother

from the Berkshires

I saw a woman place flowers at a grave:
her body wrapped tight in navy wool, her hands
willful, the knuckles raised to yellow peaks
around the stems--the only shock
of color in the Lenox winter wood.

These trees have set their minds against leaving--
she must be comforted that Spring comes for no one.

In Louisiana green accuses you,
spreads like gossip and will not grieve.
It mats rows of whitewashed tombs,
small chapels vailed in ivy bloom.
Believe this: she saw her love
lowered inside the frozen earth,
jarring the land and its seasons.
Our dead never break ground. They wait
in marble kilns, safe and kitchen-warm.

Louisiana Poetry Reviews

All Saints: New and Selected Poems<<<>>>Leviathan: A Poem

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I'd be proud to have written this debut collection."

I love Martha.

[Mark Folse · Rating 5 out of 5]

When Harold Bloom pronounced her in his preface a "Catholic devotional poet" I, who've lapped lapsed fifty times, laid the book aside and let it slide to the bottom of the stack thinking Donne and Herbert.

Catholic religious references abound but these are poems of praise and of judgement closer to Marvell, lightly touched with what is inextricably Catholic in South Louisiana but occasionally illuminated by a bright Saint's taper. These poems are Louisiana and it's people and the land, by turns tender and sharp, all skillfully done with a sensuous devotion. If you want to touch the soul of coastal Louisiana, start here.

[Cody · Rating 5 out of 5]

The poems here are dense and rich. While their pleasures are sometimes slow to reveal themselves, they are certainly worth reading through them a few times to find. Overall, this is a very strong collection of poems with a precise sense of place and language.

[John Adams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Southern, faithful poems.