Southern Legitimacy Statement: All you had to say was, “we don’t recommend you submit,” so I am submitting. Such is my legitimacy … Two Poems COOL JOHN FERGUSON He plays the requisite R&B, ballad, samba, smooth jazz, the pop tune all blued up then slowly ascends from the padded office…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Paula Kaufman hails from the only state entirely in the Appalachian Mountains. She likes homemade jam, local honey, black licorice laces, her grandma’s meringues and other sweetness. 21st Century Asking the Stars Advice Pea tendrils don’t know where to land, but always rise up. And the morning…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My wife was born in Little Rock, AR. We’ve made our home there for the past two years. Three Poems AT LAST she stands in the upstairs window framed in stone choker chain around her neck stares across the water over the rolling knoll through the forest…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Chris Jansen is a former heroin addict. He lives in Athens, Georgia, where he teaches fitness boxing and cares for a disinterested guinea pig named Poozybear. If You Want to Know the Truth If You Want to Know the Truth God lied. It was the serpent who…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I started out with “I’m southern ’cause I wanna be,” went on to become the Poetry Editor, and then the Poetry Editor Emeritus of this here Mule. Long live all the dead mules, especially this one. A yellow flower pops up A yellow flower pops up on…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Contributed a couple of pieces to The Dead Mule about 20 years ago. Born in central Florida, moved to north Georgia. Southern legitimacy? Family reunions always ended with my Uncle Clyde passing out shine to the men while the women gathered in Aunt Annie Mae’s spare bedroom…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: When you think the best meal in the world is a pot of pinto beans or cabbage with corn bread you have to be southern. This meal is what I’d find at my grandparents’ house when I came home from school. But the day had started with…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I once moved to Nebraska. This after 28 years of legitimate southern living in upstate South Carolina. For two cold hard Midwestern years, I shivered inside a corn farmer’s coat and dreamt of the day I’d come back South. Praise God: I don’t need to dream anymore….

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in Atlanta, Georgia(1956), and reared in Powder Springs and Marietta. I’ve lived in Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi (and Oklahoma and West Virginia). I’ve taught at the University of Alabama-Huntsville, Tennessee Tech, North Carolina State University, LSU-Baton Rouge, Mississippi State…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Stephen Hundley was raised on the Lincoln River, south of Savannah, Georgia. When the weather was right, you might have found him in a clawfoot tub on the porch. When the game warden wasn’t around, you might have found an alligator in the tub too. Stephen’s love…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: “Georgia and Louisiana–specifically New Orleans which the rest of Louisiana hates anyway–are both located in the South and they are where I come from. My family came to Virginia from the British Isles; migrated to Georgia; didn’t spread out much till after World War II, and my…

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. Mud An assassin’s doctorAncient brick starter materialSling to insultFacial mask soothingEye socket counterpart during champagne toastingGhost pottery wheel…

SOUTHERN LEGITIMACY STATEMENT I was conceived on a houseboat on the Ashley River in Charleston, South Carolina and was born in Monroe, North Carolina first year of the Baby Boomers. I got my undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. My kin, Irish immigrants to North…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Dear Ms. MacEwan, I should not feel the need to apologize for living now in Ontario, for your name suggests first generation roots in Scotland, or at least Nova Scotia. My claim to a southern heritage comes from growing up early outside Atlanta before it became a “real”…

“12th of February, waiting on spring” February night the color of jackdaws the color of sleep under blankets the taste of dreams. Names are lost faces blurry and puffy like bad teeth in photos from another age. War again. Peace was the last bit of silver, a touch of sun….

The Southern legitimacy statement: I was raised by jackalopes. Among them were Jim Boatwright, Liz Morgan, and Dabney Stuart. Floyd A pregnant spider twists on the end of her line her web breaks my cigarette’s smoke into a hundred pieces smell of grilled pork caresses my face father-in-law smokes over…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Dear editors, if born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee, doesn’t qualify for a head to toe, imbued southerner, don’t read my poem.For twenty years, I have belonged to the Live Poets’ Society of Boca Grande, Florida, where I spend the winter these days. We published an anthology a…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My family and I come from Georgia, and while they have mostly died off or moved further south, I still say I hail from Atlanta. Great-great grandfather wore grey and fought in The War while my granddaddy was a used car salesman. My daddy was a dirt farmer…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I am a native Virginian who has lived in Boston and Philadelphia. I am back in Virginia and enjoy connecting with my southern roots. I write poetry, short fiction, and I act, and paint. Little Pools In your deep moonlight Where the sun and the little stars shine…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up across from cotton fields in Shreveport, Louisiana with my Mama and sister, back when anything south of of the city that wasn’t covered in cotton was covered in kudzu. Not too far from our home was a rise in the landscape behind which the Red…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in the South, deeper, in fact, than my father and mother, both of who relocated from southern Georgia and southern Mississippi respectively. I attended college in Charleston, South Carolina, at The Citadel which, contrary to the experience of most alumnae, widened my worldview. Thus,…

“Holman’s House” by Darrell Grayson This chapbook will always be available on the Dead Mule. It is not archived. It is published in memory of Mr. Grayson who was executed by the state of Alabama on July 26, 2007. These poems were, for the most part, committed to memory and…

Snippets of Holiness A Chapbook of Collected and New Poems by Helen Losse *** I. Poems from Gathering the Broken Pieces (FootHills Publishing, Kanona, NY, 2004) Voices I want to eat ambrosia, dine with the gods. Dance. Seraphim at the gate, velvet-winged. “A plea is not a call,” says the…

No southern legitimacy statement but we have an autobiography: Jessica (Tyner) Mehta is a Cherokee poet and novelist. She’s the author of six collections of poetry including the forthcoming Savagery , the forthcoming Constellations of My Body, Secret-Telling Bones, Orygun, What Makes an Always, and The Last Exotic Petting Zoo as…