Everette "Rhett" Maddox (1944–1989)[1] was an American poet who in 1979 co-founded (with Robert Stock and sculptor Franz Heldner) the longest-running poetry-reading series in the South at the Maple Leaf Bar in New Orleans, Louisiana.[2]

Biography

Maddox was born near Prattville, Alabama. He studied at the University of Alabama, where he did his doctoral work but did not graduate.[3]

He moved to New Orleans; beginning in 1975, he taught at Xavier University but lost that position and later became homeless. Also in 1975, he became an associate editor for Louis Gallo's Burataria Review, then started organizing and MCing at the Maple Leaf Bar.[4]

Maddox's work was published in The New Yorker and The Paris Review. He published two books of poetry; a third was published posthumously.[5] Other poetry was included in Umpteen Ways of Looking at a Possum: Critical and Creative Responses to Everette Maddox, edited by Grace Bauer and Julie Kane.[6] In 2009 another selection of his poetry was published, I Hope Its Not Over And Goodby: Selected Poems of Everette Maddox.[7]

Maddox died of esophageal cancer in 1989. His ashes are buried in the patio behind the Maple Leaf Bar under a stone that reads: "Everette Maddox – He was a mess."[8]

Bibliography

  • The Everette Maddox Songbook
  • Bar Scotch
  • American Waste
  • I Hope Its Not Over And Goodby: Selected Poems of Everette Maddox (2009)

Poetry and criticism

  • Grace Bauer; Julie Kane, eds. (2006). Umpteen Ways of Looking at a Possum: Critical and Creative Responses to Everette Maddox. Xavier Review Press. ISBN 978-1-883275-16-7.

References

  1. Poet Everette Maddox, New Orleans Historical Society, retrieved 22 December 2014
  2. Larson, Susan (2013). The Booklover's Guide to New Orleans (2 ed.). LSU Press. p. 65. ISBN 9780807153093.
  3. Poet Everette Maddox, New Orleans Historical Society, retrieved 22 December 2014
  4. Gallo, Louis (30 April 2015). "'The Christ of New Orleans': Everette Maddox, A Reminiscence". Southern Literary Review. Retrieved 12 July 2021.
  5. Stokesbury, Leon, ed. (1999). The Made Thing: An Anthology of Contemporary Southern Poetry. University of Arkansas Press. p. 185. ISBN 9781557285782.
  6. Everette Maddox (1944–1989), Xavier Review Press, archived from the original on 22 December 2014, retrieved 22 December 2014
  7. Maddox, Everette (2009). Adamo, Ralph (ed.). I Hope Its Not Over And Goodby: Selected Poems of Everette Maddox. University of New Orleans Press. ISBN 9781608010004.
  8. Jeff Duncan (21 December 2014). "After loss to Falcons, it's evident New Orleans Saints' glory days are clearly over". The Times-Picayune.


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