As part of NolaVie’s new Yeah you write! campaign, we are inviting readers to submit New Orleans-related content for a chance to have their work featured on our site. Whether it’s a personal essay about moving from New Orleans, a photo of French Quarter Fest, or a video of a second line, we want to know: what’s your New Orleans story?
Today’s featured submission comes from Aprill Atkins Cameron, a Toronto resident who, as some many New Orleans visitors do, fell in love with the city during her multi-month vacation. Based on her longing for the city after returning to Toronto, Cameron created a poetic journal of her short pilgrimage. “We shall return soon,” she vows. Check back later this week for images from Cameron’s travels.
DRINK A LITTLE POISON ’FORE YOU DIE
It’s a blur, my New Orleans pilgrimage.
Every memory in motion: walking people margarita grits
walking people margarita grits blues
Big Chief of the Nation wild wild creation walking people margarita grits blues
Big man with black cape envelops me
I love you baby, he croons.
walking people margarita grits blues magnolias
SAINT SATCHMO
White cathedral Black spires pierce
cobalt sky Wrought iron Crumbling
stone Chipped paint Jazz hounds
Sun has set Light slanting No shadows
Circus barker dances Solitary girl raggedy 21
Voice a hollow tin can rings out over inky Quarter
There is a house in New Orleans they call the Rising Sun
Feet walk in other direction LOUIS ARMSTRONG AIRPORT
Slight chop Bridge over Ponchartrain ends
Ice welcomes Colourful outfits fade Tinny voice
wakes me at 4 a.m. these days I’m goin’ back to New Orleans
To wear that ball and chain
LEFT MY HEART IN SIBERIA
Cool Russian ladies dance the night away.
I want to dance with them, too shy, so I
watch transfixed. My grandmother’s Russia
did not look like this.
Lightening Lee & Little Freddie King headline
tonight. Lee is effusive. He gives me a faux red rose,
bordello scented. I cannot take it home. I may be
arrested at the border.
Little Freddie wears red. He is 4 foot 7 and sits
close to the Russian ladies on a bench. He is cool,
incarnate. Plays the guitar like the devil knows
his name.
Never go to New Orleans, gentle reader, I implore you.
For, though The Saints may pray for your sorry-soul,
In your chest, there will reside a heart-shaped hole.
NOLAbeings Multimedia artist Claire Bangser created NOLAbeings as a portrait-based story project that marries... 
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