Katherine D. Perry: Poetry
SLS I was born, like everyone else, in a particular place. Alabama: not just a Southern state, but The Heart of Dixie, where vowels are long and round. I spent my early years in the woods (without a gun) searching for answers to how the...
Ron Cooper: Understanding Poetry
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born and raised in the South Carolina Low Country in a swamp so think that airplanes had to shift into low gear to fly over it. I retrieved the bones of Quentin Compson from the...
Greta Cabrel: Four Poems
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I’d like to tell you about the poorly shrouded frost-burnt parrot carcass stashed in a friend’s grandmother’s freezer, but it’s not my story to share. I do tell on my housemates’ haints all the time, though, because...
Rebecca Baggett: Poem
My Southern Legitimacy Statement: Born at James Walker Memorial Hospital in Wilmington, NC to a Southern father and a ex-pat mother (Pennsylvania Dutch from Tulpehocken Township). Grew up at Carolina Beach, where except for Sundays we went barefoot or in...
Calvin Heyward: “I Captured the World in Mason Jars while drinking from Scooby Doo Jelly Jars …”
Southern Legitimacy Statement: My southern roots are sown in the coastal island of St. John’s, just off of the beautiful peninsula known as Charleston, South Carolina. Though born in Harlem, New York – Charleston is the birthplace of both my...
Tom Sheehan: Letter To My Sweet-Smelling Woman Waiting
When asked to read to celebrate my new book of memoirs, I let the audience enter the cubicle from where the work came. I told them: I’ll celebrate with you by telling you what I know, how it is with...
Allison Thorpe: Four Poems
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I’ve swallowed moonshine and lived to brag about it; escaped a copperhead’s randy tongue; ridden a tobacco setter like some rogue elephant; eaten fresh-caught bluegill at dawn; been romanced by a choir of whippoorwills; and fallen asleep amid...
Patrick Metoyer: From Where I Am
Southern Legitimacy Statement river town sleepy town cajuncreole spicy foods filé gumbo sultry air pop guns china berry trees joie de vivre laissez bon temps rouler
Robert Thompson: Potty Mouth Philosophers
Southern Legitimacy Statement: There is a warmness to the South. Beyond the obvious, the steamy summers and Goddawful humidity, its native peoples don’t hesitate to pass the offering plate for Ms Jenny’s nephew who came down with a dreadful ailment...
Justin Evans Poetry
SLS: Though I was not born or raised in the South, I have lived in Georgia, Texas, and in North Carolina, while I was in the U.S. Army. I may not know much, but I know enough to never refer...
Sean Lause: For Little Sister
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I hereby swear that I love my MaMaw and see her about once a year. I know where the Mason-Dixon line is supposed to be though I have never been able to actually find it while traveling....
Allison Thorpe: Five Poems
SLS – I’ve swallowed moonshine and lived to brag about it; escaped a copperhead’s randy tongue; ridden a tobacco setter like some rogue elephant; eaten fresh-caught bluegill at dawn; been romanced by a choir of whippoorwills; and fallen asleep amid...
Convalescence by Alan Steele
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I'm from a small town just outside Cowtown (Fort Worth to those who don't know better), with white gravel roads that claimed my front teeth one time and the skin off my knees and hands a few more times. I'm from a place that meant running around with no shirt or shoes from May to September, trips to Mott's 5 and 10, and visits to grandma down around Houston to work the fields, each her famous drop cookies, and help her cook pie or cobbler or wild grape jelly. Dad was a cop and mom stayed home, and I'm still close by, though the town has changed and the light in town has a few new friends and a new toll road for competition. The fire department closest is still volunteer and football will always be king on Friday night.
Poetry
Essays
