
Helen Losse : A yellow flower pops up : Poetry : May 2019
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...

John Nettles : Deployment : Poetry : May 2019
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...

Gail Peck: Poetry : May 2019
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...

Dan Leach : Strays and For Light : Poetry : April 2019
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...

Gale Acuff : Poor Soul, Marriage : Poetry : March 2019
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,...

Stephen Hundley: Three Poems February 2019
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...

Reid Mitchell: LOUIS ARMSTRONG ORDERS THE 101th AIRBORNE (February 2019)
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...

Andy Betz (Jan 2019)
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...

Norvin Dickerson : Three Poems Jan. 2019
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...

Greg Stidham (Dec. 2018)
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...