I’m grateful to have been able to review the Louisiana Contemporary 2020 exhibition, in its last days at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art (closes Feb 7). If you’re in the area and you never got a chance to see it, consider this the perfect activity for a rainy weekend — the show is as provocative and inspiring as ever. Thanks to the editors at Burnaway for the opportunity.

The New Orleans Poetry Festival has announced that it will, in fact, take place this year, in a modified format. From the organizers:

• Throughout the month of April we will host virtual and hybrid events. All of you who had events accepted for NOPF 20 are welcome to recast (or entirely replace) those events in the virtual environment.
• Events will run throughout the month. None will be concurrent. One or two events per day.
• We will use the beloved zoom platform for broadcasting, however we want to encourage everyone to move beyond the mugshot views we normally see there. We’re happy to help with ideas in this regard.
• We will broadcast the zoom performances live and archive a video to the website.
• While we are still ironing out technical issues, we encourage everyone who submitted a proposal for ’20 to let us know if you will be participating this year.

The magazine of the Presbyterian Church in America has a brief meditation on a recent COVID casualty here in New Orleans; I’m grateful to the editors for the chance to reflect on its passing.

(content warning: mild ecumenical eschatology)

I’m delighted to be joining host Ronnie Shows and journalist Ashton Pittman of the Mississippi Free Press this coming Thursday, Christmas Eve, once more on “The Right to Vote” on WJNG-FM in Hattiesburg. 12.30pm, 92.1 FM. We’ll be talking monuments, post-election wrap-ups, and very likely the kitchen sink. Anyone in the Hattiesburg area, feel free to call in!

Part 4 of the series on the monument is now up at the Pine Belt News. Grateful as always to the editors and to my colleague William Sturkey.