What is the provocative poet, novelist and National Public Radio columnist Andrei Codrescu up to these days?

“I’m living in the ruins of what used to be New Orleans, watching the collapse of American civilization,” Codrescu told the Journal-World in a Friday e-mail message.

But that’s not all.

After a short digression in his message urging writers to head to New Orleans – a city he calls “an invaluable laboratory for incompetence and social breakdown at every level” – Codrescu got back to talking about his latest projects.

“Writing songs, thinking up a long essay on belief and images, and wondering why the bastards aren’t paying me,” he said.

Codrescu is scheduled to bring his witty commentary to Kansas University on Monday, when he will kick off the Hall Center for the Humanities lecture series with a talk at 7:30 p.m. in the Lied Center auditorium.

“I think he’s one of the most interesting essayists around at the moment,” Hall Center director Victor Bailey said.

The Romanian-born Codrescu emigrated to the United States in 1966. He lives in New Orleans and is a distinguished professor of English at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.

His latest book is “New Orleans, Mon Amour,” a collection of essays. Codrescu also contributes to NPR’s “All Things Considered.”

Codrescu said he plans to talk about his beloved but troubled city to his Lawrence audience Monday.

The city as he knew it is detailed in his book, he said, and the new New Orleans is coming.

“At the moment, there is an urban insurgency going on, a war between criminal gangs and everybody else, but I believe that the gangs will lose and the developers will win,” he said.

Codrescu sees Hurricane Katrina as a new archetype for 21st century catastrophe. He plans to discuss this Monday.

“I’ll display beautiful purple patches of anger, heart-rending flashes of drowning beauty, songs of New Orleans,” he wrote. “My talk is presented by the humanities, so it will be geared to exploring what our catastrophe means to the humanities.”