Banned Books Week 2009

The ACLU/ American Civil Liberties Union has organized an event to kick off Banned Books Week 2009 to be held at The Bridge Lounge this Sunday afternoon. Stop by to see a panel of local writers read from works that have been banned.

My husband, Billy Sothern, is scheduled to read at 1:40 pm from Charles Baudelaire's previously banned works. Other writers scheduled to read include Lolis Eric Elie, Thomas Beller, Patty Friedmann, Gerod Stevens, Roberts Batson, Fred Kasten (WWNO announcer), James Gill, Louis Maistros, Tom Piazza, Poppy Z. Brite, Paula Morris, Ken Foster and Anne Gisleson

From the ACLU Louisiana website:

2009 Banned Books Week Kick-Off Event

Sunday, September 27th, 2009 from 1 PM to 4 PM

Bridge Lounge
1201 Magazine Street
New Orleans, LA

FREE and OPEN to the public :: Menu and Cash Bar will be available

What I've Been Doing These Last Ten Months

I have been growing this baby!

Her name is Rose "Rosie" Mae Sothern and she smells good.

I am REALLY tired, so I will be posting Billy's blog post about her arrival. It's funny though, because though he beat me to it, I was going to write something around the very same Chuck Perkins piece...guess that's why we are married...

From Imperfectly Vertical, Billy Sothern

Family: Rose Mae Sothern

Last week, Nikki and I drove around New Orleans listening to Glen David Andrews' new album, Walking Through Heaven's Gate, trying to get Nikki some distraction from the discomfort of the ninth month of her pregnancy. The last track on the album, Family, struck both of us and gave us some sense of what was approaching for us. It's a spoken word piece with New Orleans poet, Chuck Perkins.

Perkins describes the birth of his child:

It was watching my wife
After eleven hours of labor,
Whose eyes and face
No longer possessed the words
To describe her pain,
So she pushed.
It was twenty years of anticipating
What my child would be
And who she would be
And when I saw the tip of her head,
Before the slap,
Before the cry,
Before I saw her eyes even,
It was like I was about to meet a long lost friend
Whom I had never met.

Early this morning, after an epic, unmedicated labor, Nikki gave birth to Rose Mae Sothern here in New Orleans. I am in awe of Nikki and the little baby girl that came into the world this morning. New Orleans artists have a gift for describing the indescribable, but as much as I like Perkins' description of child birth, he doesn't fully capture the feeling of seeing your wife give birth to your child. I am not sure anyone could.