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.