I was born in the South, educated in the South, and have lived my entire life in the South. I drink sweet tea, grow antique roses, eat Creole tomato sandwiches, and own a copy of Longfellow's "Evangeline."
Diane E. Dees “A Man Walks Into a Bar”
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Lanny Gilbert “Country Road”
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in North Georgia in the Appalachian foothills. I know what cathead biscuits, protracted meetings, #9 turners and #2 washtubs are. I can read shape notes and sing from the Sacred Harp book. If that ain't Southern, then grits ain't groceries.
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Tripp Howell: “Ole’ Doc Jenkins”
A retirement home in northern Mississippi, near Memphis: “So, anyway, like I ‘uz sayin’, I was down in ole’ Doc Jenkins’ room one day back ‘fore he died, and he ‘uz tellin’ me this story ’bout this woman he treated once…” “Man, dat ole’ Doc Jenkins, he ‘uz just ’bout a damn fool…dat man always […]
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Carter Monroe: Politics
Archived Mule Writers say it best.
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Barbara Nishimoto “Identifying Trees”
Southern Literacy Statement
I was born and raised in the North, but now have lived most of my adult life in the South. When I first moved my mother acted as though I were moving to another country and told me all the stories she had collected from the tabloids she loved. When she visited during the summer she rolled and tied a hand towel around her head, a desperate hachimaki, and stuffed tissues around its edges to catch the sweat before it fell into her eyes and down her cheeks. “Eight o’clock at night is the same as three o’clock in the afternoon,” she said. “That’s why horses go crazy and impale themselves.”
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Erin Kelly “Sound No Trumpet”
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I talk slow. I eat etouffee, jambalaya and boudin. I've clapped my hands to gospel in hot, crowded churches, and visited Catholic psychics. I've gone through many Louisiana winters in short sleeves and shorts.
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Jackson Culpepper “Judgment House”
SLS: Growing up in south Georgia, I have a Stockholm Syndrome-type relationship to temperatures over ninety degrees and one hundred percent humidity. But the devil can have his damned gnats.
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Becky Meadows “Three Seconds”
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up on my grandmother and grandfather’s farm, where we ate fried potatoes, green beans (cooked for an entire day or more on the stove in a pot), and cornbread. Fried chicken was a treat we enjoyed, and it was really fried—not the carbon-copy fried chicken found frozen in stores today. We ate tomatoes from the garden (straight from the garden). My southern heritage isn’t limited to food, though—I have the most marvelous southern accent that I have refused to relinquish for academia. I’m proud of my heritage!
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Christopher Rowe: High Water
“That was a nice cast, boy, your daddy’s been teaching you something right down there in Florida.” “Now, don’t start in again, Hiram. The child wasn’t the one decided to pick up and move off. We’re blessed to have him visit for the summer.” “I ain’t saying anything different, Martha, I was just commenting […]
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Lemoncharles by southern writer John Calvin Hughes
Southern Legitimacy Statement:
I’m John Calvin Hughes, son of a son of a preacher chased out of Mississippi for plucking the flock. I’m a southern boy who moved south and found himself surrounded by Yankees. I’m in Florida. There’s not a hill in sight and the restaurants that specialize in “Real Southern Cooking” put sugar in the cornbread. My own son told me the cat pushing on his chest was "making bagels"!
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An ESSAY to celebrate the day: “Life Mission” by Byron Crownover
SLS: Having been born in the middle of the last century, I sometimes feel as old and worn out as some of the farmland surrounding my home. Weeds taking over my mind much as they do to fallow fields, pushing up memories with their roots. Not all of the weeds need to be pulled, but once pulled one thought leads to another and stories, if not exactly true, should be, follow.
I find more and more that the stories surround, and revolve around, the joys that are grand-kids. Having six of said creatures I have plenty of raw material to choose from. I also congratulate myself on not killing their mothers when they were teenagers, although I was sorely tempted at times.
Having been born and raised in the state of Arkansas, I don't consider myself as a Southern Gentleman, or even a Colonel of the Old South, but rather as just a man, much as my father was, trying to do his best to do the right thing, to be kind to dogs and kids, and to be respectful to my elders, who get fewer and fewer each year.
I guess I am best summed up in the saying, "American by birth, Southern by the grace of God." There is no other place I'd rather be.
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Travis Turner : Chimney Sweeps
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Son of Alabama's Black Belt. English/Literature/Writing Instructor. Lover of black cats, good bourbon & better storytelling.
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Scott Rooker : Dentists Abroad
SLS Statement:
Growing up I remember my mom saying that we couldn't get tornados in North Carolina. 'It was too hilly here' she said. It seemed plausible.
Then one a day a huge tornado came through Raleigh and destroyed the Kmart.
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Ellen Perry : I Wonder
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Mom from Colbert, Georgia, where the Confederate monument has yet to be defaced. Dad from Johnson City, Tennessee. Born in Weaverville, North Carolina, where I still live today. 40 years old and still in Weaverville! Wouldn't want to be anywhere else.
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Ted Harrison : A Family Event
Statement of Legitimacy:
Having been born to the daughter of a subsistence farmer, marrying into farming families and living in one Southern state all my life- so far—I can hope I have been weighed and found whole in the D. O. S. (Department of Southerness). (Some say long sentences are a Southern trait—I won’t argue with that.) While I never pulled tobacco, I have picked cotton. While I never won a dancing contest, I have shagged at the Pad in O. D. For much of my life I have known the difference in the two Southern Beaufort cities. And I remember when Wake Forest University was Wake Forest College in Wake Forest, N. C. and not Winston Salem, N. C. Let this attest to my Southerness. Thank you.
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Dexter Gore : A Rare Commodity
I am Dexter Gore, son to a potbellied-father, who is son to a one-eyed, tobacco-rollin carpenter who fished the outbreaks of North Carolina. I was born and raised in Aynor, South Carolina, a small town with two stop lights, a gas station, and a church just a piece up the road from the liquor store. I have moved and now live in Norfolk, Virginia. There is no sweet tea. There is no chicken bog or backbone and rice. And the people here don't say "Bless your heart," "Yes ma'am," and "No ma'am." They prefer, "I feel sorry for you." At least that's what people tell me when I share that I'm from South Carolina.
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Rudy Ravindra :: GPS Lady
Southern Legitimacy Statement: What makes me a real Southerner? I don't eat corn on the cob, it gets into my teeth, and takes forever to floss it out. I don't like grits, too runny. I don't speak like no Southerner from Aberdeen, MS (My ex-mother-in-law's hometown, she was a cotton picker and a snuff pincher, god bless her soul).
Oh, well, I give up. I am a Southerner because I lived and continue to live in the good ole South.
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April and May 2016
We are creating the Poets for Spring this weekend. Helen and Valerie created a wonderful cornucopia of poetry — available soon, so very soon. Like before tax day, depending on thunderstorm activity (and yes, we have a battery backup, but …). Brand spanking new fiction and essays coming your way …
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Jo Williams: Do It Yourself Medical Testing
Proving my Southern authenticity is as easy as fallin' off a mule. I was born and raised in Cowpens, SC, a famous Revolutionary War site. For nearly five decades, I lived in a farmhouse built by my Great Grandmother Lily Kate Price. Six generations of Southerners enjoyed making family history in that 1880's homestead. Except for some very brief times, South Carolina has remained my place of residence. I'm so Southern I bleed white sop gravy
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Austin Eichelberger : Fluency
Here's my Southern Legitimacy Statement: I could dig post holes, shovel manure and handle horses single-handed by the age of 11. I grew up on a farm 45 or so minutes from every school I attended until college. I've never seen my mother wear make-up and I've never seen my grandmother without it. I've been stepped on, head-butted, kicked and bitten by more kinds of livestock than most people have seen in person. The neighbor's kids and I used to play in the hay balers in their barns, the sawdust pile in
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More Pages to Explore .....
