Andrew Keith :: Grudge ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Raised by rednecks and roughnecks, I reckon no one holds a grudge like a southerner. I’m from Johnson City, Tennessee – yes, the one from “Wagon Wheel” and I sure hope I’m the only ten-you-see. Happy to...
Nancy Werking Poling :: Oscar’s Bane ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: My regional identity is confused. Though born in Indiana, I grew up in Orlando before Disney and attended Robert E. Lee Junior High, where we flew a Confederate flag. After living in the Chicago area for almost...
Courtney McEunn :: Sour ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up in the swampy craplands they call central Florida. I ran around the sand roads barefoot, swam in the giant oil puddles they called lakes, went tubing and canoeing alongside alligators and snakes on more...
Narya Deckard :: “Thinking About Kentucky and the Wolfpen Poems,” “The River Yearning,” and “Cicadas” ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Appalachia, just south of the Mason Dixon, That invisible line the weight of a dead mule. Ramps, trillium, and mayapples Showed me where I ended And West Virginia began. Appalachia, a few hundred miles south Of that...
Eric Olsen :: Life, Legacy, Fractured Spines, and the Power of Now ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I am a grits, sweet tea, and collards enthusiast. I have a recipe for each that I make myself regularly. *ya’ll need to read this essay.. Life, Legacy, Fractured Spines, and the Power of Now April 13,...
Barry Gordon Thompson-Cook :: It Was On a Bayou ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Barry Gordon Thompson-Cook was born in Louisiana and is buried there. In between, he lived in Dallas, Omaha before moving back to Louisiana. He left his beloved Opelousas to marry a Yankee, to the horror of his...
Holly Thompson :: The Heeler’s Lyric; The Facts of the Legal Matter ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: My submissions are sent to you with a promise of Southern Legitimacy, as I was born in Oak Ridge, Tennessee (birthplace of the atomic bomb) and continue to capture and pen down just a few of the...
Jane Sasser :: Why She Poisoned Him; Ode to Barn Clothes; Bargains ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I attended high school in a small community in North Carolina where our track team consisted of six members, and my friend and I had to convince the coach to let us girls on the team. We...
Savannah S. Miller. :: In Tennessee, Part II ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up in a little town in southern Virginia whose claim to fame was an extremely popping Dairy Queen and a gas station with fried chicken that could put any KFC to shame. I spent four...
John Riley ::What Did She Lose?::
Southern Legitimacy Statement A field did stretch between our old house in Randolph County, with its recently exposed plumbing that froze every winter, and a much nicer house across the field. The people who lived in the nice house wanted...
Richard George :: Poetry ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I attended Tulane University and lived and worked in New Orleans upon completion of my studies. From an apartment by the Fairgrounds, in the middle 1990s, I published the avant-garde literary magazine, Mystery Itch. Mentally, I never...
Sage Yamashita :: Three Poems ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: My dad worked for the State Department and I spent most of my life growing up living south of the equator including Ecuador, Peru, and South Africa. There are places and people there whose names and initials...
Jen Aceto :: I Found Ease in Oklahoma ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Despite being born and raised on the coast, I felt most at home among the art deco buildings of downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma. I’ve participated in a number of debates about whether Oklahoma is in the South or...
Noah Banta :: A City’s Lagniappe History Of Old And New People ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Spent my entire life living in a town being constantly expanded upon where I can’t remember ever being a time where a highway wasn’t being constructed over my house or a night sleep without the muffler of...
Jane Blanchard :: Undertaking ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Native to Virginia and long-resident in Georgia, I’m as Southern as Southern can be. (Let’s not talk about the seven-year stretch in New Jersey.) A prominent Mid-Western poet once told me during a workshop, “I could listen...
Poetry
Essays
