New Orleans Poets on the Airwaves: Dr. Mona Lisa Saloy and Dr. Peter Cooley

Written by David Benedetto

As well as WRBH’s Poetry contest (which you can read about here!), we will also be spotlight several local poets during the month of April on our Midday Poetry program. Starting this Wednesday at 12:30PM (with a replay on Sunday at 6AM), listen in to hear some of the best New Orleans has to offer. After the episode airs, it will be uploaded onto WRBH’s Soundcloud page. Here’s what’s up for the first week: 

• Peter Cooley
  • A native of the Midwest, Dr. Peter Cooley has lived over half his life in New Orleans, where he is Professor of English at Tulane University. He is the recent recipient of an ATLAS grant from the state of Louisiana and of the Marble Faun Poetry Award from the Faulkner Society in New Orleans. Cooley is Poetry Editor of Christianity and Literature. He also directs Tulane’s Creative Writing Program. Born in Detroit, Michigan, he holds degrees from Shimer College, the University of Chicago and the University of Iowa. Cooley has published eight books of poetry, all with the Carnegie Mellon University Press, most recently Divine Margins (2009) and Night Bus To The Afterlife (2014). He was named Louisiana’s Poet Laureate in August of 2015. 
• Mona Lisa Saloy 
  • Author, folklorist, essayist, and poet, Dr. Mona Lisa Saloy is associate professor of English and director of creative writing at Dillard University. She received her PhD in English and MFA in creative writing from Louisiana State University and her MA in creative writing and English from San Francisco State University.  She previously published Red Beans & Ricely Yours, which won the 2005 T. S. Eliot Prize and the PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles Prize in 2006. Saloy’s literary voice represents the African-American and the New Orleans Creole cultural experience. Her most recent book, Second Line Home  (2014), is a refreshing collection of poems that captures the day-to-day New Orleans speech, contemplates family dynamics, celebrates New Orleans, and all in a way everyday people can enjoy.

To listen to our featured poets from last year and the winners from our first annual poetry contest, check them out on our Soundcloud page below!