Category: Poetry

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I used to be illegitimately Southern, living in South Florida until recently, now having completed my first year in the Tarheel state of NC. I grew up in a family that made fun of Southerners and now...

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...

Southern Legitimacy Statement:  I am a native-born Oklahoma poet who’s work is inspired by nature, class, and life experiences that were shaped by my Southern family. The poem is inspired by a recent family vacation to Gulf Shores, Alabama and how...

Flashing Mirrors at a House Built in 1742, III I leaned against the largest maple tree, planted hungry years before upon a leech trench, watching my going out of me at play and shining the souls of mirrors back, telling...

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Though my genetic roots were not planted in Southern soil, a brief sojourn in San Antonio, Texas provided me with a life-changing experience. Southern culture and literature has been a strong influence in my writing. Five Poems...

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...

My Southern Legitimacy Statement: My parents hailed from small communities about an hour north of Baltimore, places where front porch sittin’ and strawberry eatin’ were the norm during the longest days of June. I remember my mother’s dad liked his...

Southern Legitimacy Statement: All of my ancestors before my generation were born in Alabama. Because my father as a career Army man, I was born in a military hospital. But every summer, we went “home” to Alabama to see grandparents, cousins,...

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...

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Born in Florida, I’ve lived in Louisiana since 1976, 17 years in New Orleans, the rest in Cajun country. South Louisiana is strange even by Southern standards: We think Mardi Gras is a national holiday, that a Catlick...