Alice Osborn: Four Poems
Southern Legitimacy Statement:
I was born below the Mason-Dixon Line in Washington, D.C., a North/South limbo gumbo to a French mother who hated Southern France and a father who loved Charleston thanks to his long gone Citadel days. My dad’s Beaufort, SC ancestors fought in Petersburg in the War of Northern Aggression and his grandfather has an elementary school named for him on Parris Island. I am a Southern girl because way before I lived in Charleston and Myrtle Beach I knew I had a high humidity tolerance and felt comfortable driving without hubcaps. I still know how to avoid all of the sketchy roads in Charleston and I’m mistaken for a native by the tourists every time I visit this fine city—it must be my floppy straw hat and blue flip flops. Today as a Tar Heel I’m hopelessly addicted to bacon, I freak while driving in snow, and I love to spin tales that may not have a point.
