“Never Trust The Weatherman” by Shane Hinton
Southern Legitimacy Statement:
My family has been farming in the South for fifty years; longer if you count cotton. I don't count cotton.
“Damn Tourists” by John Baradell, Jr.
SLS: Most of my family was born and raised in the Deep South, and remains there (Mississippi, Alabama, and East Texas). Things get a bit confused by some in those areas when they find out that I grew up in the Upper South of Tidewater, Virginia. When they hear my soft accent or that I prefer to be asked first before my tea is sweetened, I am sometimes accused of being a Yankee (not that there's anything wrong with that). Not so with my family, though--I'm still Southern through and through--and proud of it. I'm so Southern that I can go into great detail about my usual scratch staple of grits and its historical importance to the South's survival. True, but I eat them so often (always stone ground--never instant) because they're soooo good.
Plus, I know the difference between a chicken house and a hen house, and have met both chicken catchers and chicken sexers.
Paranoia by Joseph Finder, movie to be released Aug 16th
About mid-way through this Mule’s life, I worked for Popmatters.com as the Books Editor. We had around 70 critics in my department and back in that day, digital previews were not available. I had to arrange for books to be...
Jessica Wimmer – If I Let My Babies Be Born
Southern Legitimacy Statement: It was probably around age seven in the middle of a winter night that I realized how southern I was while dangling my legs in Granny's outhouse.
Diane Hoover Bechtler – Illiteracy
Southern legitimacy statement
my grandmother made fat back sandwiches at lunch for all the grandchildren and our cholesterol is just fine.
Kevin Winter – What The Storm Did
Southern Legitimacy Statement: A snapshot of the South. A line of watermelons laid out in the grass. The road, just glorified gravel. My wife pointing through the windshield at the hand-painted cardboard leaning against the fence post. A smile playing across her face in the shifting sunshine. An empty gumdrop jar gleaming beside the cardboard sign. "Take a melon" on one line, "Leave a dollar" on the next.
Hannah Thurman – Snakes in the Ceiling
Southern Legitimacy Statement: When she was 8, Hannah attended a weeklong Kay Yow Lady Wolfpack basketball camp at NC State University, where dribbling was optional but prayer mandatory.
Frances Badgett – Wishbone Stick
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up in Lexington, Virginia steeped in summer afternoon storytelling that winds its way late into the night. I walk 74 percent slower than most people I know here in Washington State. I'm pretty sure I'm the only person who orders grits at the diner here in town. I have that way we have that makes us really tiresome at the grocery store in places like Seattle and New York. I'm descended from Felix Grundy. I'll let you Google him.
*ValNote: I google'd him.
April Writer Spotlight – Robert Klein Engler and a bit more…
This month’s poetry rises above the pocosin and flies over our heads toward the astral plain. Having North Carolina’s poet laureate, Joseph Bathanti, join us to create an issue unparalleled in lyrical superiority seemed to compliment our seventeen year online...
Rachel Kapitan — the notion …
I moved to Virginia at age seven and was baptized by vernacular when on my first day at the new school my teacher told me to do something "right quick." The whole world sounded different. Decades later, I can make fried green tomatoes without a recipe, and (not so) secretly enjoy going to the Bass Pro Shop.
In Loving Memory
* * The 2013 April (Poetry Month) Issue of the Dead Mule is dedicated to the memory of Elsie R. Jones May 13, 1921 – March 12, 2013 Beloved Mother of Poetry Editor Helen Losse. * Elsie Rosa Jones, born...
Joseph Bathanti – NC Poet Laureate
Mr. Bathanti is well known to many of us in NC. Bathanti is currently a professor of creative writing at Appalachian State University where he is also Director of Writing in the Field. He is the Writer-in-Residence for the Watauga Global Community.
He was installed as the seventh North Carolina Poet Laureate on September 20, 2012, at a ceremony in Raleigh, North Carolina. During his two-year term, he will be an "Ambassador of N.C. Literature" and will remain free to create his own long-term projects. The position requires the laureate to participate in various literary activities across the state, working with "with schools, community groups, and the press." We see the two extraordinary poems here in the Dead Mule as an extension of his poetic mandate.
Mr. Bathanti has received many honors including:
The Sam Ragan Fine Arts Award (1995)
Oscar Arnold Young Award – The North Carolina Poetry Council (1997)
Carolina Novel Award – Banks Channel Books (2001)
Sherwood Anderson Award (2002)
Linda Flowers Literary Award – NC Humanities Council (2002)
Novello Literary Award (2006)
The Spokane Prize – Eastern Washington University
North Carolina Poet Laureate (2012–2014)
Ragan-Rubin Award – North Carolina English Teachers Association (2012)
*Wikipedia entry re:Joseph Bathanti. For those of you unfamiliar with his work, check his Wikipedia page for more details and a list of his publications and access links.
Statement from the Editors:
Every year, in April, the Dead Mule publishes the poet laureate of a Southern state as the centerpiece of its Poetry Issue. Helen Losse established this tradition early in her career as Poetry Editor here a the Mule. In past years, we have featured such esteemed poets as: Kathryn Stripling Byer, Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda, Marjory Wentworth, Claudia Emerson, Sue Brannon Walker, and Cathy Smith Bowers.
This year we are fortunate to have two unique and wonderful poems from Joseph Bathanti, the Poet Laureate of North Carolina 2012-2014. He was appointed by Gov. Bev Purdue.
This April poetic tradition is a joy to create each year and we hope everyone enjoys reading all the incredible writing.
Later in the middle of the month -- don't forget -- Fiction! Essays! And now, read on -- on down the page -- there are 27 more poets here.
Janet Joyner : Six Poems
Southern Legitimacy Statement:
Number One: if you’re the one asking “Honey, who are your people?” let’s just say mine have been here long enough to understand the question; Number Two: there’s a reason my middle name is Lee; Number Three: I grew up in the Carolina low country where even the sweat sweats. That good enough?
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Poetry
Essays
