Category: Poetry

The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Poetry

Shann Palmer Chapbook “Skip Tracing Angels” or “Uttering and Publishing”

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in Houston, Texas January 4, 1950 when there were so many babies born my mother was on a cot out in the hall. I was premature and not expected to thrive so was placed in an incubator with another baby, a boy. My name was supposed to be "Sharon Rose" but when the woman with the clipboard came to my unconscious mother, my grandmother told he my name was to be "Sharon.....and...". I am grateful to this day my name became Sharon Ann and not Sharon And. I later shortened it to Shann for what I thought were good reasons. We weren't poor, we were genteel, though sometimes before payday I remember eating cereal with water, giving my dad babysitting money I made so he could buy gas (and it was cheap then). I could go on about moving to Virginia in 1971 after attending the University of Arizona, but I plan to tell that story in a different way when I figure it all out.
Read More
The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Poetry

River Haven by Pepper Smith

For my southern legitimacy statement, I'd say, my name is Pepper, which has caused me much grief living in the DC area, but made a lot of sense in my home of Mississippi, where I was born and grew up. There it was warm and unpretentious. Here it's silly and people will say things like, "what's a grown man doing with the name Pepper?"
Read More
The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Poetry

Three Poems by Charles Edward Wright

I know that my Southern legitimacy may be marginal, having lived my whole life in a border state, but thanks to my North Carolinian grandmother, my father’s family name was Bubba, and we only ever vacationed in Morehead City. And I reckon that my hometown of Indian Head, MD had adequately Southern sensibilities. I am hopeful that my SLS effectively expresses my honest affection for the people amongst whom I grew up. Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was raised on a narrow neck of land between the Potomac River and the Mattawoman Creek, in a town where the eggs were never poached but the venison very likely had been.
Read More
The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Poetry

Poems by D.M Aderibigbe

MY SOUTHERN LEGITIMACY STATEMENT I was born in Lagos, Nigeria, that is the southernmost part of Nigeria, and I've always had predilection for the Southern part of any nation. I love New Mexico and Texas in America. I'm a proud southerner of the world.
Read More
The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Poetry

Four Poems by Robert Wooten

My southern legitimacy has oft been disputed, and for this reason, I really am at a loss for words. If you can believe it, I was told "you sound like a New Yorker" and (mis)identified as the descendent of "carpetbaggers"—false, false. Perhaps there was a bed switch. Anyway these poems have pleased. And I have an MFA from Alabama
Read More
The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Poetry

Two Poems by Hattie Wilcox

River Glistens river glistens and flows in my direction bathes me in the peace of its rippling trees lean in to canopy the shelters beavers have built against its banks a lawn of insects hover and hunt birds twitter and...
Read More
The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Poetry

Three Poems by James Kimbrough

I was born and raised in and around Mobile, AL mostly but have lived all over the heart of dixie, even way up north in Anniston, Alabama. My first memories are of Tuscaloosa back when my parents were going to school and the Bear was coaching. I went to high school in the Gator country of Satsuma where it's not unheard of to see the those massive, prehistoric reptiles crawling in your backyard. I went to college at Troy before finishing up at South Alabama located in my hometown. Now, I teach English down at the very bottom of the state in Bayou La Batre where the students come to class fresh off the shrimp boats wearing their white Bayou Reeboks.
Read More