(Finishing Line Press 2014) delivers a new way of looking at leprosy, now known as Hansen's disease. The beauty of these poems is arresting and surprising, given the once taboo subject of leprosy. The leprosarium at Carville operated for over a hundred years.
As a child in catholic school in New Orleans, Ferrara grew up hearing about lepers. Four years ago, when she visited the colony in Carville, Louisiana, she learned more about the lives of the patients. Carville is located off River Road, near Baton Rouge. However, it is essentially in the middle of nowhere. Ferrara captures that sense of isolation in her Carville Poems. The title references the fact that moss and resurrection fern can be found in the oak trees at Carville. Ferrara was taken by the physical beauty of the landscape at Carville and how the beauty of the land was intertwined and connected to the personal experiences of the patients. From "A Perfect Terrain": 'Drenched in moss and resurrection fern, the oaks stayed stoic--/a perfect terrain for the ostriches, swift-footed and flightless/that would never arrive.'
In writing these poems, Ferrara never lost sight of the loneliness experienced by Carville residents. "I wanted to convey how people who had the disease became isolated--very removed from the lives they had lived and previously known, " she said. "They no longer saw their families or loved ones. They had to establish a new and different way of living."
Residents at Carville may have been isolated, but they lived life to the fullest, put on dances and Mardi Gras balls, and published a newspaper with a circulation of over 250, 000. The poem, "Tea Hour on Point Clair Road," shows how the ladies would take their tea, 'The fingerless/Even the unmarred waited for the sips and stains of tea hours,/ Something miraculous as a cure/under a sun no longer at apex.'
Gina first began writing the poems in the spring of 2010 and finished the book over a period of two years. She approached Finishing Line Press because they had published her first poetry chapbook,
The Size of Sparrows, in 2006. She met one of
the patients, Pete from Trinidad, who was about ten years old when he arrived and is now in his eighties. He is one of the last patients to live there, rides around on his bicycle, and is eager to talk to visitors. The lyrical poems, along with photographs by Elizabeth Garcia, offer a window into life at Carville, Louisiana.
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Gina Ferrara |
Carville in the Spring
Gina Ferrara
Sugar surrounds this sanctuary
far from ordinary or Galapagos.
The road ends each time
I check my appendages
for open wounds, red splotches in tandem.
I remember the last pliant hand I held.
Would the constellated sky feel like a hand?
Each finger with its own unblemished identity—
supple and tapering to a square tip,
the bony range of knuckles
buckling only to brush inside my palm.
I squint and scan for semblances of past lives.
Who is the gypsy? Who is the physicist?
I have my suspicions.
Today a woman arrived.
She strolls through the covered corridors
with memories of her identity and scepter,
helpless and unable to reign over the bacilli
waiting to uprise in time as unwanted suns.
Gina Ferrara's work has previously been featured on
La Bloga. Her latest full-length poetry book,
Amber Porch Light was also recently reviewed by Frank Mundo in the
Examiner.
The recent issue of PaperTigers focuses on the power of children to change the world. As I read it, I thought of a book my sister gave me called The Umbrella Girl. My sister works for The Leprosy Mission, an organization dedicated to treating leprosy victims and assisting those who suffer from its after effects. The Umbrella Girl is the story of Mali. Mali lives in Chiang Mai, Thailand. While still young, she is struck down with leprosy and can no longer help with the family business of making umbrellas. What will Mali do? Where will she go? How can she help the family when she is becoming sick?
The Umbrella Girl recounts the plight of many children in the world who are struck down by disease. Innocent and vulnerable, often without access to medical care, they have little recourse in life to alter their circumstances. Their mere survival is itself heroic. In Mali’s case, The Leprosy Mission diagnosed and treated the disease. After spending time in hospital, Mali returned home and according to reports from my sister who visited Chiang Mai recently, is now a healthy young woman. Books like The Umbrella Girl are of two-fold purpose — to make children aware of the plight of other less fortunate children, and to enable them to make a difference to children like Mali by praying for them and/or by donating to these organizations. The Umbrella Girl fell into my hands when my son needed a cause for which to be a ’superhero’ for his class’ SuperHeroes project. In reading The Umbrella Girl, he came to know more about leprosy and the people it affects, and was able to transmit this information to his class.
The Umbrella Girl can be obtained by requesting it from The Leprosy Mission or the story can be found here in PDF format.