2012 Best of the Net Nominations
The Dead Mule has submitted the following poets and their poems [published in the Dead Mule to the 2012] to Sundress Publications: The Best of the Net. Congratulations to all. Cathy Smith Bowers – “A Book a Day” – published...
Shenan Hahn – Two Poems
Southern Legitimacy Statement:
Born in Northern VA, spent a childhood split between full-time living there and part-time living in the Shenandoah Valley, and all of my college years in Harrisonburg, VA (also in the Valley). Did not fully realize the extent of the "Southernness" of my mannerisms until faced with my husband (then boyfriend) who had spent many of his formative years in Connecticut, and would often needle me about the accent that slipped out with certain words. The following conversation occurred one day: "Please. 'Y'all' isn't a Southern phrase. Maybe it's associated with the South, but it's just a common phrase. Everyone says it." "Um, no, they don't." "Yes they do! Who doesn't say 'y'all'?" "People from above the Mason-Dixon line." "Seriously??" "...Have you ever actually been up north?" "Yes, I have, thank you very much. Wait, what else do they not do?" Things that were concluded to, apparently, not be part of the northern experience (news to me!): grits, scrapple, okra (I know okra doesn't grow in the desert, but there are really places where okra is just not eaten?), the phrase "ain't nothin' doin'," getting to miss school for the opening day of trout season, and calling Jefferson Davis "Jeff" Davis, "as if we all knew the guy."
