Southern Legitimacy Statement: For ten generations now my ancestors have lived in the mountains of southwestern Virginia. Great-great-great-great Granddaddy (briefly) lived in Kentucky, until a posse chased him back across the Virginia state line where he (and we) stayed. We eat cornbread, never grits. The Ballad of Lockhart’s Mule: An…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Though the son of a Wedding DJ and the product of a place on the outskirts of Orlando, Florida, I was raised on collard greens, snap peas from my Papa’s garden and fellowship fried chicken after Sunday service at Grandma’s house. If I ever was thirsty I…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: What could be more Southern than a poem about Jesus? Well, okay: I grew up off the North Carolina coast and spent my childhood summers barefoot, hopping back and forth from the blazing-hot black asphalt of the road and the sandspur thickets along its sides. Despite those…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Michelle Renee Hoppe is south of Jordan in Saudi Arabia. She grew up in Florida for a hot minute, and she is a nomadic displaced and fragmented sort of ghosty person. Tulip Bulbs Dry on a Sunday Morning of a Utah Spring When I learned Mormonism uprooted reason,…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Carl “Papa” Palmer of Old Mill Road in Ridgeway, Virginia, lives in University Place, Washington. He is retired from the military and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) enjoying life as Papa to his grand descendants and being a Franciscan Hospice volunteer. Carl is a Pushcart Prize, Best of…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: If everyone is south of somewhere then I suppose I am legitimate, because I was born and raised in the wilds of South Jersey. Also my mother’s father is from Kentucky. nevervision There was such a party in the ante times,if only it had happenedOh how they…

Southern Legitimacy Statement Southern Legitimacy Statement : I went to college in Delaware (not the south) but anyone south of Glasboro, NY, thought they were–and the accents were thick. In my travels, my drives south, I realized that the south was calm and quiet—the way it should be. For that,…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: . I was born and raised for twenty-one years in a little town of less than 2,000 people known as Vancleave, Mississippi. There wasn’t ever much to do there growing up if you weren’t a fan of hunting and fishing, so I became rather introverted and focused…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My family is from Texarkana, Tx: my great-greats, greats, grands, mother and sister. I was born in the backwoods of what Ginsberg dubbed, “nowhere Zen New Jersey” and grow up working of my step-father’s azelea and rhododendron nursury. At 91, my grandfather still holds court in Texarkana…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in Norfolk, Virginia and grew up in nearby Virginia Beach. Spent lots of time in Gloucester VA where my mom grew up. Summers almost always involved a two-week trip to the Blue Ridge. If you want to go further back, I recently traced a…

My Southern Legitimacy Statement : My parents began our family in Virginia, where I learned can’t never could, my mother gave me my druthers, and plans relied on if the creek don’t rise. Later we moved to Southbend Indiana, and finally to Southern California. As an adult I married a…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in Valdosta, Georgia. My grandfather was more tied to the mythos of the South than my parents were. My grandfather said at the kitchen table one time, “Your grandmother is a Yankee [from Ohio],” marking her as different somehow, and her within earshot washing…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Fayetteville, Arkansas is my home. I grew up here and then was gone for a very long time. But I came back to live here again and to research and write. I’m a local historian, a novelist, and a poet. Some of my work is set in…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: When we think of the south, those of us who are older remember sitting on porches to visit or to help others string beans when the crop was in. Our house, in southwestern Virginia, faced a street where we could watch cars pass, sometimes with people we…

My SLS varies with my mood and the moon. Sometimes I think about how race relations and people’s perspectives have and have not changed. Sometimes it’s as simple as what’s on the table for dinner. Sometimes it’s about the overarching kindness you find and share through even casual acquaintances. Sometimes…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Native to Virginia and long-resident in Georgia, I’m as Southern as Southern can be. (Let’s not talk about the seven-year stretch in New Jersey.) A prominent Mid-Western poet once told me during a workshop, “I could listen to you read the phone book.” Sam’s Club –Hiram, Georgia…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born, reared, and educated in South Louisiana, the sixth generation of my family in the New Orleans area. When I was really little, my family used to watch Hee-Haw every weekend, and somehow I learned to sing like those heart-in-her-throat gals. I want to be…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born and raised in Missouri and now live (very, very) close to Atlanta. With the exception of college, I have spent my entire life in the South. She Would Always Be My Girl From birth, she was love at first sightHer eyes set my heart…

As for a Southern Legitimacy statement, here goes:I was born and raised outside of Knoxville, Tennessee.  One great-great-great grandfather was an abolitionist state representative in the Radical Republican legislature in Tennessee during Reconstruction.  Another great-great-great grandfather was a member of the 1st Tennessee Cavalry, CSA, was wounded, captured, and interned…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: There’s more to the South than culture, food, idiom, hunting, fishing and football. I have been a citizen of the South for a long time. I have seen changes in the demographics, the climate, the culture seen through how we respond to and perceive each other –…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: In keeping with the theme of this poem, various motorcycles marked my years in the South. In high school in Winston-Salem, I rode a Honda CT90, low on speed and power, but I got back and forth to school for 50 cents a week. At Wake Forest,…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: We moved to North Carolina when I was ten. It was 1979, and I watched The Dukes of Hazard religiously. I spent summer days in the woods along the Haw River. My buddy and I would walk the creek looking for crayfish, keeping a careful eye out…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Work, labor, and economy have been areas of focus in my art practice over the last several years. Before I began my journey as a visual artist and educator, I worked blue collar jobs in the printing and manufacturing industries. Manual labor, the daily grind, hustling, however…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Kristina Heflin spent her formative years hiking in the Georgian foothills of the Appalachians. It was there she learned a love for all animals, from the squishy frogs of the backwoods criks to the bumbling bears of the piney mountains. Today, she passes on her love and…