This is a call for Holiday Poems and Micro Fiction (500-750 words) from those of you who have already been published in the Mule. For this issue only, we are accepting previously published submissions. Send poems to Helen and micro fiction to Val by November 29. As always, we reserve the [...]
Southern Legitimacy Statement:
I have lived in Missouri all my life. My family came to Missouri in 1809 from Virginia. Currently I live in southern Missouri in the boot heel. I am an educator at a school who has a mule for a mascot. In fact, most of my clothes have a mule (although not dead) embroidered on them. My dog is a feist named bubba.
Southern Legitimacy Statement:
I was born in Kentucky, lived 16 years in Georgia and moved to Alabama my junior year of school to play football for my Mama’s alma mater. I’ve lived in Rainsville, Fyffe, and Fort Payne, Alabama. Though I joined the Air Force 13 years ago and haven’t held legal residence in Alabama since then, I still go back when I can to brush up on my Southernese and see my Mama and Daddy since they don’t trust airplanes enough to visit me. My greatest claim to southern fame (in my own mind) is that I converted my Yankee wife from hating cornbread and taters to requesting it on special occasions and even commenting “By God, that’s some good tea!” She has also come to enjoy New Year’s Day when I fix black-eye peas and collards with ham hock for good luck and prosperity. Though my grandmother and my mammaw have both passed on, I think of them often; especially when I enjoy a big bowl of hamburger vegetable soup (with extra okra) and an extra large helping of chocolate puddin’. I’m not afraid to refer to my Mama as ‘Mama’ around my counterparts who may not understand the South and poke fun at me for that. I do believe in the father, the son, and Bear Bryant. For my last birthday, Daddy sent me a houndstooth hat which is prominently displayed in my home office by my library just below a picture of Coach Bryant. Furthermore, the experiences of having lived most of my life in the South continue to inspire my writing no matter where my travels take me.
Southern Legitimacy Statement:
I was born in Brooklyn, New York to two African American parents. Each have deep southern roots. I didn’t realize just how deep they ran though until I began my work as a genealogist and traced ancestors going back to colonial America–in the South of course.I visited down south a lot as a child and still do to this day. I am currently enrolled in college as a history major with a focus in African American and Southern history. I love Southern food, Southern life, Southern folks and Southern talk. In my opinion, the only way a person can know they are South of the Mason-Dixie line is when the encounter some “good ole’ fashion Southern hospitality.”
Editor’s Note:
The Dead Mule is proud to present Kimberli Jordan’s first published works.
Southern Legitimacy Statement:
My people have lived in Georgia, depending on which side of the house, Mama’s or Daddy’s, since the 1700’s, so I suppose this qualifies me on the surface as a Southerner. But of course it’s much more than that. It’s a love for landscape, poetry (in all of its earthly forms) and manners towards people we interact with that qualifies me, as well. A respect for others, regardless of creed or belief, is part of that. There is also a darkness, a scar that we hold that tells us all may not be well. Yes, I drink sweet tea and eat grits, but I also know that the South is a part of the larger world. I just hope it doesn’t change us too soon, although I know it’s just a matter of time (See what I mean?).
Southern Legitimacy Statement:
Down where I’m from, Statenville, Georgia, formerly known as Troublesome, home of the novelist Janice Daugharty, and not too far from where Harry Crews grew up or from where Doc Holliday tried to blow up the Lowndes County Courthouse (before he became a doc, of course), that statement would be a pretty clear assertion of the local state of mind, not that there’s anything particularly commendable about that state of mind. How about “Son of a bitch, Ellie May, the hogs done drug the grits into the cement pond!”?