Category: Poetry

The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Poetry

Robert Cory: Three Poems

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I confess to the following: a) learned to eat (and like) grits, biscuits and ham gravy at a little cafe on the town square in Fayetteville, AR. b) one of my favorite all time authors - Barry Hannah, whose characters are The South, to wit: "We invented gin and tonic." c) I still use the term "Y'all"; d) I talked to a man in Daytona, FL. in the early 70's who claimed he could limp on both legs; e) in the poem “Just Past Midnight” I was the only Yankee on board.
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The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Poetry

Matt Byars: Three Poems

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I've lived in the South my entire life thus far with the exception of a foolish year I spent in Seattle. There was a girl involved. I figure twenty-nine years in West Texas and six years in Atlanta will more than atone for my youthful indiscretion with the non-South.
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The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Poetry

Jonathan Patterson: Two Prose Poems and Two Haiku

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Born and raised in a small town in Western Kentucky. A progeny of a long line of southern men who know nothing but carpentry and southern disposition; hence, some might say, I am a southerner. I currently live in Illinois, but, for better or for worse, Kentucky never leaves me.
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The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Poetry

Jennifer Hollie Bowles: Two Poems

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I've lived in the South my entire life, well, except for that short time I lived in Kansas City, MO, but we won't talk about that. I'm well-educated, but the slang still slips out, sometimes like chicken gravy, and sometimes like molasses. I have a nose-ring, and I don't look Southern at first glance, but if you get to know me a minute, you'll see. I've got that thing you can't put your finger on about Southerners, that thing that hissy-fits through life screaming: “I'm going to forge my own path come hell or high water!” And because I'm so damn charming, you'll never know what hit you... As my granny always says, “butter wouldn't melt.”
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The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Poetry

Jeanetta Calhoun Mish: Two Poems

Southern Legitimacy Statement: All my folks on my momma’s side that I know of came to Oklahoma from South Carolina and Kentucky, on the Southern route. I grow collard greens, sweet potatoes, and okra in my vegetable garden (or did, before I moved to the mountains of New Mexico. Does anybody know of you can grow okra in the mountains?). I used to try to hide my accent but have decided it’s an asset. My husband likes to tell the story of when we were in a Powdrell’s, a barbeque restaurant in Albuquerque, and the owner, a man from East Texas, came all the way acrost the room to tell me how much he loved to hear me git excited about finding “sweet-tea” on the menu. And anyway, Oklahoma (especially eastern and southern Oklahoma, where I’m from) is a Southern state where the eighth college of the Seven Sisters of the South was founded, where barbeque is a sacrament (served dry, sauce on the side), and where I learned to eat granny’s homemade chow chow with beans. The story of Sarah Venable Little as told in my poem, my great-great-great is true so far as I know it; the baby she’s carrying is my great-great grandpa. The diary section is purely imaginary.
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The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Poetry

Ry Frazier: Two Poems

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I lived in Savannah, GA for some odd years. I'm awfully fond of the way it feels when I say the word "Tupelo". The last girl I kissed was from Florida.
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The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Poetry

George Nixon: Two Poems

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was raised in and around Edenton, NC, mostly working on farms. I learned about enduring August heat, working with mules, and how to get to the end of the next row of peanuts by singing and creating diversions in my head. All that served me well in later life. I learned the 3 R"s and ended up in Richmond, VA. where I have been a counselor for the last 30+ years
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The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Poetry

C. B. Anderson: “Some Dark Hollow”

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I’ve wanted to live in the South since my college days, in the late 60’s. In part, this was due to a desire to find a climate nearly ideal: higher elevations in lower latitudes, such as southern Appalachia or perhaps the Ozarks. Later, I nursed a wistful wish to dwell where people encountered on the street were more likely to say “good morning” than to avert their eyes. Although I have never lived in the South for any great length of time, I have seen the dogwood blooming along I-40 in Tennessee, camped out in the Great Smoky Mountains one early spring not too far from Asheville, NC, helped a friend erect a greenhouse in Melfa VA, eaten some awesome pork-laden collard greens near Pine Mountain GA, and watched the sun set over the bay in Biloxi MS. I could go on. The South is the epicenter of bluegrass music, and that fact alone might have been enough to clinch it for me.
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The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Poetry

Cynthia Manick: “Ethel September”

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Fish sandwiches after church. Blue hallelujahs. Gossip. Grits on toasted Wonder Bread, never wheat. And tea so sweet, it makes your teeth hurt. I’m a northern transplant but Santee, South Carolina is my original home. People visit there now for its golf courses and to drink at Myrtle Beach. But I miss the paper plant that smelled like sugar when crossing the bridge, my grandfather’s shop that sold boiled turtle eggs and bootleg crab, and the red ants and bullfrogs that followed me around during the summers.
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The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Poetry

Mark Windham: “Different Flowers”

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Born in Mississippi before living in Kentucky, Texas, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida (in the South, but not Southern) and settling in Georgia. It is not 'hot' until above 95, nor humid below 95%. Anything less is 'muggy' at best. Catfish is only meant to be cooked by frying in cornmeal. Blackened is acceptable if a fryer is not available and you have kin from New Orleans to tell you how. Sweet potatoes are a vegetable. Cornbread does not contain flour, only cornmeal, and it is best served for breakfast Monday morning extra crispy with butter and sorghum. Most parts of every meal can be cooked in a cast iron skillet, possibly the same one. Sometimes at the same time.
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