I just found out that my friend
Vi Landry died today.
She was driving to Alabama
from New Orleans.
It was a head-on collision.
She was killed instantly.
This morning, she was
walking her dad’s dog
along the water.
She was just here.
I kept trying to photograph her that night-
she was so gorgeous, luminous.






Here is some of her writing that I could find..
Her blog– insightful reporting on politics
and life in post-Katrina New Orleans
I love her writing about the termites
and other insect invaders,
in Planet of the Insects
-especially in regard to the last time
I saw her, in full termite princess regalia..
Some of the articles she wrote
for the Gambit Weekly and other publications:
THE LAST SURVIVORS
Labor Pains
A report by several civil rights groups
pinpoints another post-Katrina misfortune:
exploitation of workers.
Awesome, Girls!
A mentoring program at St. Mark’s
Community Center helps teenage girls cope
with adolescence and post-Katrina stresses.
It hasn’t really hit me yet,
so I’m writing- trying to bring
the blood to the surface,
anything to break the numb-shock.
I don’t know what to say or do.
Light candles for her passage
and for her family.
Her father died recently.
She took care of him until the end.
Oh Vi.

One minute we’re marching
side by side in a parade-
and in the next, you’re gone..
You were so beautiful and brilliant.
You will be so missed.