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Dissolution

November 1, 2010 by Steve Mentz 1 Comment

I could say that I spent last week on the coastline of southern Louisiana, but being down there reminds me that there’s no line on that coast.  Instead, we’ve got a watery borderlands into which everything solid slowly oozes.  I don’t think of Auden as a poet of the American South, but his lines were rolling around in my head all week —

…the silent dissolution of the sea

Which misuses nothing because it values nothing.

The human struggle down there is all about “use” and “value” — the conflicting needs of the Mississippi, which wants to jump its banks & shift its mouth over to the Atchafalaya River Delta; the needs of the oil & gas industries, who service their off-shore rigs through Port Furchon, which will soon be an island; the needs of fisherman both commercial & sport; the needs of people whose land is slowly reverting to open water.  It’s a landscape that looks like a seascape. 

More to come…

Filed Under: Blue Humanities, E. 110 Fall 2010, Louisiana

Comments

  1. John Misak says

    November 9, 2010 at 1:14 am

    If I am not mistaken, the Church of Spongebob (actually exists) was founded in Louisiana, or at perhaps somewhere in Florida near the LA border.

    Just when you think people have gotten as crazy as possible.

    Reply

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About Steve

Steve Mentz
Professor of English
St. John’s University
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