SOUTHERN LEGITIMACY STATEMENT: I’ve lived in Louisiana for a handful of years, and I’m now working on a PhD in English (Rhetoric and Composition) at LSU. In my time here, I’ve tried many different gas stations’ boudin (they always have the BEST boudin. My favorite: Nonc Kev’s in Rayne); done…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I have been in your magazine, have babysat grandchildren in NC, and trained for the Korean engagement with ETSU’s 278th Infantry. Dared Dream I didn’t want to wake you too early. I hope your sleep was deep, thorough, and you cross-dreamed with a friend who carries a…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: For years I lived off barbecue ribs in Memphis, Tennessee, then broke up with my ex and moved to California, which turned out to be a big mistake, because people out west don’t drink beer and raise hell like people in the south. Holy Water Abraham joined…

Born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama. Only wore shoes if I was going to church or school. Relocated to North Carolina where I now enjoy Bojangles’ Famous Chicken ‘n Biscuits. Off Me, I Said Get Moron. Loser. Dumbass. These were the names I was routinely called during my summer stint…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Born in Tennessee, raised in Kentucky, live in North Carolina. I’ve bumped my head in tens of caves where Daniel Boone was rumored to have slept, and each time I’ve believed it. The Box The summer sun was gone behind the trees on the horizon, and the…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Born in Salisbury, NC, I moved quite a bit as a child. We lived in several places throughout my home state before relocating to Jacksonville, FL while I was in the fifth grade. After thirty years I returned to where it all began, dragging my wife and…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born by coal oil lamplight in a tin-roofed farmhouse 6 miles outside Liberty, Mississippi. I list logging, plowing a mule, picking cotton and working in a country store in my resume. Learned to swim in an Amite River swimming hole–no lessons. My uncle went to…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: E. G. Fate is the penname of an author, who currently resides in the state of South Carolina in the basement of their family’s house. While having no works published as of yet (aside from stories on fanfiction.net), E. G. Fate enjoys writing both comical as well…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: A good piece back, I was Drum Major for The Pride of Dixie, Cairo High School, Syrupmaker Marching Band.  It was during these formative years I developed a talent for walking backwards for long stretches of time. Ash It was their creak upon the porch I mistook for…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Being from West Virginia, I am from a certain section of the South. I am Appalachian raised with a special place in my heart of all things Southern. Homecoming I woke up sweaty, tangled in the white cotton sheets of the bed. Stupid dream. The air was…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: * here’s how they talk in Somewhere, Texas? Uncle Dwayne’s Luger “Sue-Lynn called me hollerin’ an’ bawlin’ over the phone: ‘Oh Uncle Joe, it’s jus’ the awfullest thang!’ ‘Whut the hell er ya caterwallerin’ ‘bout, Sue-Lynn?’  I wuz pushin’ like a roothog t’ make my next inspection…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: A good piece back, I was Drum Major for The Pride of Dixie, Cairo High School, Syrupmaker Marching Band.  It was during these formative years I developed a talent for walking backwards for long stretches of time. Ash It was their creak upon the porch I mistook…

William Walsh Fly fishing in Times Square The seventh book from William Walsh is an award-winning collection of poems, Fly Fishing in Times Square, where he recalls the past in order to discover meaning in the present and future. From Červená Barva Press in Boston, the Editor Prize   Fly Fishing…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I still say y’all, ain’t and I reckon. I live near Tampa and I would say that is nearly southern as one can get, although I don’t live near a swamp. Calls From the Southern Forest Today, in the forest, I happened upon something that triggered a…

My Southern Legitimacy is that I used to work towboats out of exotic ports such as Fouchon and Houma. There I developed a lifelong thirst for sweet tea and gumbo done right. If that isn’t enough legitimacy, I understand. Not everyone can be genuine Southern. Three Poems THE ACE HOTEL…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up on a tobacco farm in Rougemont, North Carolina. As soon as I turned eighteen I did what everybody else who gets tired of the work and the dirt and the tobacco worms do and I packed up my things and walked away. I spent…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up watching the BC Powder commercials with the woman clutching her temple and saying: “That sure ain’t helping my headache.” I learned at an early age that one of the proper ways to drink Coca-Cola is from a bottle with salted peanuts dropped in. Blondie…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I’m tired of apologizing for being a native Floridian. I’ve never ridden an alligator or cooked meth, and “Florida Man” headlines freak me out too. Some of us down here in the thumb of the country are nice, normal people, but I can’t deny that living in…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: The folks below were born in Alabama, Louisiana, and North Carolina. Unless there is a statute of limitations on the Southern Legitimacy Statement I sent you in 2016 when you kindly published my “Mule Toe” poem, I am opting out of this requirement. I have lived at…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born and raised in the segregated South. Separate water fountains, restrooms, seating in the movie theater, and schools. My high school didn’t desegregate until two years after I graduated. I regret that. My city commission just moved the statue of a Confederate soldier from downtown…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born by coal oil lamplight in a tin-roofed farmhouse 6 miles outside Liberty, Mississippi. I list logging, plowing with a mule, picking cotton and working in a country store in my resumé. Learned to swim in an Amite River swimming hole–no lessons. My uncle went to…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in Knoxville, TN. and lived in Tennessee and Virginia while growing up. However, we moved North to Chicago a few years later. Dirt Clods Dirt clods were rock and clay projectiles molded together and thrown at each other by the kids in my new…

Acknowledgments This chapbook is dedicated to self. The first 33 poems were written in the Old Capital of China, Xi’an, in 2016 and the last few poems were composed at the immigration hospital in the city of Columbia, South Carolina, U.S.A. in April 2017. During my harshest time in Xi’an,…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: An image of a worn Meerschaum clinched tightly between my father’s tobacco-stained teeth as he loosed an iron horseshoe toward a wooden stob in the ground. Granny’s Rapture “Bobby, you better git in here fore the Rapture comes and leaves you behind.” I had just pitched a…