Author: MacEwan

The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Poetry

Mary Alice MacDonald: Four Poems

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up in central North Carolina, just a few hours away from beaches or mountains. A considerable portion of my childhood summer days were spent in the Ozarks in Arkansas climbing the Mimosa tree in Uncle Berlie's yard and eating biscuits and chocolate gravy for breakfast. I swam in spring-fed creeks, rode horses to church, and slept through (hellfire & brimstone) sermons. Another large portion of my childhood was spent sweating in tent revivals and church meetings in Florida, Tennessee, Alabama, and generally everywhere south of Ohio and east of Texas. I'm the preacher's daughter. I know where yonder is and how much is in a mess of mustard greens, and Kentucky has provided me with a lifelong allegiance to bourbon and poetry.
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The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Poetry

Joycelyn Renette: Four Poems

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Knock-kneed and barefoot, eating fresh pecans on Mama D porch; the South was always about surviving; staying above that which can easily bring you down. Walking the same Mason-Dixie line with those still engrossed in America’s fabric; blood, slave stained fabric dripping with racial relevance. From the cattle and horse fields of Texas to the citrus trees of Florida groves, the South was always about surviving; keeping firm faith amongst a storm. Double consciousness becomes the very entity that keeps a collard green, chittlins, cornbread eating child’s mind intact; acknowledging that I am in a world that will never fully accept me for my color is seen first. No matter my age, regardless the decade, the words, “nigger girl!” have still been yelled out of a school bus window at me. Much has changed in the South, yet under the surface much is at a progressive standstill.
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The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Poetry

Kevin Ridgeway:Three Poems

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I am a California boy, born and bred. The paternal side of my family is wonderfully southern, hailing from scattered places–Oklahoma, Missouri and Arkansas, especially. My grandfather was a proud southerner, although a drinker and unstable character of ill repute–one you might find in a Carson McCullers novel, perhaps. The most time I’ve actually spent in the South has been in airports–but I could smell its beauty and hear its music having my curbside smokes on those layovers, and I could see the majesty of its landscape from my cabin window. Much of the music I love comes from the South, and much of the literature I love comes from the south. The South is in my blood and it owns a part of my spirit. Most of my dreams take place in the South.
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The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Poetry

Lizzie Krieg: Two Poems

Southern Legitimacy Statement: As a child, I lived in Fairfield, Ohio. During the summer, my mom and dad would take me to Cincinnati to get ice cream at Graeter's and we'd hang out on the riverfront. I'd eat my ice cream, always chocolate chip, and look out over the Ohio, and marvel that not only was I looking into another state, but at the subtle distinction that separated the Midwest, where I was, from the South. Even then, at six, I saw something wild about that land over the river, and wondered why Kentucky should seem so much freer than where I was, less than a mile away.
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The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Poetry

Carol Lynn Grellas: Two Poems

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My favorite movie is Gone with the Wind. I’ve saved the drapes from every home I’ve ever owned hoping I might salvage a gown or two that even Scarlett would be proud to wear.
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The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Poetry

Michael Dwayne Smith: Blues for a Day

Southern Legitimacy Statement: First off, cookin' ... I mean Grandmama's fried chicken, roadside shack boudin sausage made with crawfish, and speaking of crawfish, I mean crawfish étouffée and oyster po-boys and blackened catfish for lunch, with ice cold Turbodog poured all over it-- and don't forget the fried dill pickles, please. Second, blood ... I wasn't born in the South (yes, I admit, southern California), but my family runs through Missouri and Texas, by way of Tennessee. And third, brotherhood ... one of my best friends is from Mississippi, and it's because of him I get to spend time eating, drinking, and photographing in Jackson and Vicksburg and New Orleans. It's just something that walks with you all your days, whether you like it or not, whether you want to feel blues or bluegrass or Irish or cajun in your blood, or no. I'm hungry.
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The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Poetry

Joanna S. Lee: incongruent

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Of closer bloodline to Robert E. than to Bruce, I grew up learning battle names: Manassas, not Bull Run; Sharpsburg, not Antietam. And though I was raised nigh the border (Winchester—three battles of its own), I call Richmond, and the banks of the James River, home.
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The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Poetry

Paul Owen: Railroad Tracks

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I am a college professor in the Asheville, NC area and have lived here for the last eleven years. I assume that qualifies me as living in the South.
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The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Poetry

Tracei R. Willis: When You Tell My Story

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I consider myself to be a Southerner with Northern tendencies, an illegitimate daughter of the South if you will. I was born in Ohio to parents who were born and bred in Alabama. They felt their southern roots wilting when I was five years old, so they uprooted their flower child from sidewalks, snow, and front stoops, and transplanted me in red clay of Alabama, the Magnolia trees of Mississippi, and right up on my Big Mama's front porch. Whenever my Northern idiosyncrasies began to surface, my parents would send to one of my grandmothers for some Southern reconditioning. It was in the kitchens of Nellie Willis and Annie Jones that I learned some vital Southern lessons: 1. In the South there are canisters on kitchen counters that contain sugar, flour, corn meal and grits-- store brand sugar is acceptable, but anything other than Martha White Self-Rising flour, Sunflower corn meal, and Jim Dandy grits, and you'll have a sure-fire riot on your hands. 2. There are as many ways to cook grits as there are women who cook grits, just smile and rave about not ever having had a finer bowl of grits and you'll be okay. 3. Every kitchen counter has two blue cans of Crisco, one that actually has Crisco in it, and the other to hold bacon drippings. (Don't ask questions, just eat.) 4. Sweet tea comes two ways down here, cold and sweet. You can make it on the stove top, you can make on the back porch, you can add lemon, mint, peaches or berries-- just don't make it from a jar of instant powder mix, and don't make it with sugar substitute-- if you ask for unsweetened tea down here, you're libel to end up with a cold glass of ice water. 5. The best seasoning for greens, peas, beans, squash, and corn? Meat. Preferably smoked meat. Preferably the neck, hock, or tail of a turkey, hog, or ox. Running short on meat? (That's what that can of bacon drippings is for.) I am a Southerner, by way of Ohio, transplanted in Mississippi, with kudzu-like attachments to Alabama.
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