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Regular listeners to National Public Radio will recognize Andrei Codrescu's voice, even if they can't pronounce his name. Codrescu was 19 years old when he fled the Communist  dictatorship of his native Romania and landed in America. Forty years later, his accented English still echoes the language and rhythms of his Eastern European heritage.

What he says, of course, matters much more than how he says it. Codrescu is a prolific and iconoclastic poet, novelist, short-story writer and teacher.

"Poet on Call" is the title of his regular contributions to NPR's "All Things Considered." They are often darkly sardonic -- not surprising, perhaps, for the editor of an online literary journal of letters and life called "The Exquisite Corpse." He's also the author of "New Orleans, Mon Amour," a collection of essays about the city that has been his home for 20 years -- a ledger of contributions and longevity which have conferred upon him honorary native status.

Heading home last Tuesday night, my radio was tuned to "All Things Considered" as Robert Siegel set up Codrescu's latest commentary: reflections on the government's response to the damage Hurricane Katrina has wrought on his adopted home. With a poet's economy, Codrescu uses just 590 words to deliver an unsparing indictment of the continuing governmental failure to rescue Katrina's victims.   

Brian Baiamonte/npr.org Andrei Codrescu

You can listen to it here, along with the correct pronunciation of the poet's name. (Click on the "Listen" icon.) Thanks to NPR's vice president for news and information, Bill Marimow, and Jenel Farrell, who handles permissions, I secured approval to reprint Codrescu's text. My advice is to listen to it first. Then read along as you listen. Then read and figure out how he did it. (My attempt at deconstructing this powerful commentary appears in 11 footnotes at the end of Codrescu's essay.)

Mourning for a Flooded Crescent City
By Andrei Codrescu

Katrina was just a storm, but what followed was so hideous that one year later we can still only shake our heads and vomit. [1]

On July 9, 2006, well into the hurricane season, FEMA was advertising in the New Orleans newspaper for the following regional jobs: Chief of staff, finance director and emergency management specialist. [2]

I have to say this again because I still can't believe it. On July 9, 2006, FEMA, our national disaster relief agency, was advertising -- let me repeat -- for a chief of staff, finance director and emergency management specialist. [3]

At this point, I think that those jobs can be filled by any three people passing by on the street with go-cups.  It doesn't take but a few minutes to train anybody in New Orleans for those jobs. The chief of staff parks on high ground and goes golfing, the finance director steals all the money and hands it to his friends and the emergency management specialist tells everybody to scram. [4]

In the space of one year, our commander in chief has evolved from a flyover disaster observer to a profligate dispenser of cash. [5]

The only thing wrong with the vast billions that are supposedly heading our way is that they may actually be handed out in the form of checks instead of being thrown down from helicopters so that the groveling masses can wrestle for them like a proper Mardi Gras crowd. [6]

Hurling cash into the streets would, in fact, be a much more equitable way of dispensing the treasure than handing it over to people like Congressman Jefferson or a mayor who has been invisible to us since his re-election. [7]

The inhabitants of New Orleans who were foolish enough to come back to the city after being screwed in a myriad ways by their local, state and federal government have now taken refuge in mental illness. I hear a lot of my people talking to themselves without cell phones these days. I hear them praying out loud for Huey Long, Roosevelt or even Stalin and Mussolini. I see people staring at their feet and saying "Marshall Plan" or people deeply immersed in their third drink and second Xanax speaking in tongues. One guy said, "what's the big deal about Jefferson? I have $90,000 in my freezer, too." [8]

What the hell is this city, anyway? My friends, that's who. In all fairness, New Orleans is making progress in one area, artistic material. Never have there been so many rich and rewarding metaphors taking place in order to provide artists with absurdities. FEMA, yes the same people, threatened to take away Voodoo One and Voodoo Two, the firefighting helicopters the agency rented to the city. [9]

We are now in the middle of a drought, with arson fires raging, low water pressure due to busted mains. One fire that either Voodoo One or Voodoo Two never got to destroyed a local motel. The hostelry went up in a blaze because, according to the motel manager, a romantic rendezvous went awry. A woman prepared the love nest by lighting candles and draping a pretty covering over a lamp in expectation of her lover's release from jail. Happily, all the residents were able to flee their rooms and escape unharmed. [10]

What a lovely metaphor for your poet social observer. The motel was the city of New Orleans, the lovers were FEMA and Louisiana, the motel manager was George W. Bush, the people who escaped were us -- or whatever. You can change the elements to suit your own fable. [11]

Aug. 29, 2006. Reprinted with permission from National Public Radio.

Footnotes:

[1] There's a crudeness to the word vomit, with its intimations of a post-Mardi Gras toilet-bowl hugging. To a poet, care accompanies every word choice; among the definitions of vomit is a meaning -- "sick at heart" -- that adds a different dimension. Of course, it's entirely possible that the government's response to Katrina just makes Codrescu want to hurl.

[2] Specificity is on display here, as well as the rule of thirds -- the symmetry on display in language (life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; faith, hope and charity; Moe, Larry and Curly) and structure: beginning, middle and end.

[3] Repetition is an important arrow in a persuasive writer's quiver. Pay attention, folks, it says.

[4] See Number Three. Notice also how Codrescu's excoriating job descriptions contrast with the bureaucratic titles, ending with scram, Depression-era slang favored by movie gangsters, and one consonant away from scam.

[5] Commentary writers have the freedom to use withering language, both concrete and abstract, to make their point. Notice how Codrescu uses a picturesque compound description -- "flyover disaster observer" -- to criticize President Bush's aerial views of the devastation on the ground, then climbs up the ladder of abstraction using a word -- profligate -- defined as "recklessly wasteful."

[6] Sarcasm and irony are Codrescu's trademarks. The first draws its origins from a Greek word for "stripping flesh." Irony turns meaning on its head. Together, they make clear his opinion of the federal government's approach to post-Katrina rebuilding.

[7] Unlike many journalists who feel compelled to explain allusions, Codrescu gives his audience credit for knowing about the highly publicized bribery investigation (you can find it here as a PDF file; patience, please) of Rep. William Jefferson, who had allegedly been caught with $90 grand in his freezer. The caustic description of Mayor Ray Nagin may be lesser known, but there's no doubt about Codrescu's dismal view of his performance.

[8] The essay takes a sharp turn, one that focuses on Katrina refugees and the post-traumatic stress disorders that have received far less attention than the flooded streets and shattered homes. Psychosis, alcoholism and mood-altering drugs, Codrescu suggests, are victims' avenues of escape from the illusory and incompetent government response a year after the storm. Some of the names, such as Xanax, are familiar, but understanding others -- Huey Long and the Marshall Plan -- is just a search term away.

[9] To a poet's hammer, everything is a metaphor. By this point, I'll take Codrescu's word about the names of the FEMA's helicopters (Googling and searching The Times-Picayune's archives failed to turn up any information), but then, it's entirely possible that these monikers represent a shattered city's street slang.

[10] Codrescu abandons metaphors for the literal chaos in New Orleans, and uses figurative language to produce what amounts to a news brief.

[11] In the end, Codrescu abandons journalism for poetry, leaving us with a metaphor to finger Katrina's villains, and a note of sarcastic despair that explains why Katrina a year later makes him want to puke.