Chuck Perkins is an Ex-Marine who was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. He’s a product of the city’s public school system and he’s currently the owner of the performance venue Café Istanbul. He has just published his first book of poetry and essays called Beautiful and Ugly Too. 

Schedule

1:00 pm to 2:00 pm
Outside Museum, West Tent
The Louisiana Poet Laureate Presents Louisiana Poets, Volume 2
Dennis Formento, Phaeton’s Wheels
Olivia Clare Friedman, An Arm Fixed to a Wing: Poems
Skye Jackson, Libre
Benjamin Morris, The Singing River: Poems
Chuck Perkins, Beautiful and Ugly Too
with Gina Ferrara

2:15 pm to 3:00 pm
Cavalier House Books Tent
Book Signing

Beautiful and Ugly Too

Beautiful and Ugly Too is a firsthand account of life in the Crescent City told through poetry and essays. A third-generation New Orleanian, author Chuck Perkins was born and raised in the Pigeon Town neighborhood. This, his first collection of poetry, aims to provide an authentic description of living in New Orleans from the perspective of the Black working poor and an in-depth understanding of this unique city's history and culture. It also zooms out to offer a broader perspective of both race and class, as well as themes that connect us all as human beings. 

Through it all, these poems do not glorify or vilify, they underscore the fact that nothing is perfect, we are all beautiful and ugly too.