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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The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Fiction

The Front Porch by Tracei Willis

I consider myself to be a Southerner with Northern tendencies, an illegitimate daughter of the South if you will. I was born in Ohio to parents who were born and bred in Alabama. They felt their southern roots wilting when I was five years old, so they uprooted their flower child from sidewalks, snow, and front stoops, and transplanted me in red clay of Alabama, the Magnolia trees of Mississippi, and right up on my Big Mama's front porch. Whenever my Northern idiosyncrasies began to surface, my parents would send to one of my grandmothers for some Southern reconditioning. It was in the kitchens of Nellie Willis and Annie Jones that I learned some vital Southern lessons: 1. In the South there are canisters on kitchen counters that contain sugar, flour, corn meal and grits-- store brand sugar is acceptable, but anything other than Martha White Self-Rising flour, Sunflower corn meal, and Jim Dandy grits, and you'll have a sure-fire riot on your hands. 2. There are as many ways to cook grits as there are women who cook grits, just smile and rave about not ever having had a finer bowl of grits and you'll be okay. 3. Every kitchen counter has two blue cans of Crisco, one that actually has Crisco in it, and the other to hold bacon drippings. (Don't ask questions, just eat.) 4. Sweet tea comes two ways down here, cold and sweet. You can make it on the stove top, you can make on the back porch, you can add lemon, mint, peaches or berries-- just don't make it from a jar of instant powder mix, and don't make it with sugar substitute-- if you ask for unsweetened tea down here, you're libel to end up with a cold glass of ice water. 5. The best seasoning for greens, peas, beans, squash, and corn? Meat. Preferably smoked meat. Preferably the neck, hock, or tail of a turkey, hog, or ox. Running short on meat? (That's what that can of bacon drippings is for.) I am a Southerner, by way of Ohio, transplanted in Mississippi, with kudzu-like attachments to Alabama.
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The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Fiction

Running the Dogs by James Dunlap

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Born and raised in Arkansas with a hog pen in the front yard and pond in the back--grits on the stove. In these parts the Civil War is only referred to as The War of Northern Aggression. I grew up about three miles from Clifton Clowers and if you don' t know who that is, I'll have to ask you about your southern legitimacy. I could also tell you about the fishing, the trees and much cattle.
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The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Poetry

Robert West: Six Short Poems

Southern Legitimacy Statement: The son of a North Carolinian and a South Carolinian, I grew up near the border--in southwest North Carolina, just outside Hendersonville. My childhood neighborhood was bounded by a cornfield, railroad tracks, a cow pasture, U.S. 64., and (on two sides) what we all called "the creek." Except for a college semester in London, I've never lived outside the South. I'm confounded by people who tell me, "You don't have a Southern accent." Maybe I don't talk like a Clampett, but if I'm not Southern, I don't know who is.
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The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Poetry

Mark Vogel:Four Poems

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Though I grew up in southern Missouri, twenty miles from Kentucky and Tennessee, I have lived in Boone, North Carolina for the past two decades. Currently I live back in a holler, two miles from Snake Mountain, just off Meat Camp Road, Daniel Boone’s old stomping ground. Two years ago I raised a pet pig, but today I only live with my wife, two horses, three dogs, five cats, and three chickens.
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The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Poetry

Laura Minor: Four Poems

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My dead Aunt Sheri Lynn (R.I.P.) drank so much sweet tea, when the doctor took her off it, she hid tea bags in the couch cushions. I cracked pecans with great aunts Sissie, Tricie, Virgie, Jewel (married to Rule), Bobbie, Nanny, ... I forgot the rest of their names. I used to live across the street from 'Skynyrd's summer home on the river. I've dated a Molly Hatchet Roadie. Uncle Eddie (also R.I.P.) had the 'Hatchet gold record on his wall centered perfectly between two buck heads that he picked up in a pawn shop after a twenty year + dispute with the band over pulling the plug on one of their early shows ("Loulou, I'm the only man to ever pull the plug on Hatchet!") If none of this works, I have a rope swing scar.
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The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Poetry

Sandra Ervin Adams: Four Poems

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Although I lost my real house years ago and now live in a mobile home, I consider it my right to be a dreamer. I am proud to be southern, and if I had my way, I would own a renovated, two-story house that once weathered hurricanes, as well as The War Between the States. My books would be properly arranged on shelves in my library. The porch would extend all the way around the house, and sometimes I would sit there in the swing and watch the sunset. My cats would traipse up and down the wooden staircase. My whole family and I would gather around a tall Christmas tree, and we would enjoy big dinners like my grandmothers made.
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