April is National Poetry Month. And this year the Dead Mule has once again put together a diverse group of poets for its April issue. The Mule just keeps getting better and better, if I do say so myself.
Included in this issue (mostly in no particular order) are H. Dale Duke, who sent us [...]

Southern Legitimacy Statement:

Twenty-five years ago my wife and I honeymooned in Bethany Beach, Delaware. It was the first time I had crossed the Mason-Dixon Line, having been a native North Carolinian all my life. One morning we decided to have breakfast at a nearby grill. Eager to sample the local cuisine, I pointed at something on the menu called “Scrapple with Eggs” and told the waitress that I’d have that along with toast and coffee. A few minutes later the waitress returns with an order of pancakes for my wife and two sausage-looking squares of scrapple and scrambled eggs for me. After bowing our heads and saying grace (which piqued the curiosity of more than one onlooker), I took my fork, jabbed a piece of egg, then stabbed a morsel of scrapple creating a mini shish ka bob of flavors for my salivating palate. I chewed my first bite slowly, allowing the flavors to commingle among my taste buds. Perplexed, it suddenly occurred to me that this combination of foods was nothing new to me.

The waitress, returning to refill my coffee cup, asked, “So, what do you think about scrapple?”

Wiping the corner of my mouth with a napkin I replied, “Oh yeah, it’s great…but back home, we call it liver pudding.”

Southern Legitimacy Statement:

My family has lived in Charlotte, North Carolina for several generations now. My grandmother talked about coming to the city from Western North Carolina and riding on the trolleys that Charlotte had back then. We had a lot of Northerners to move in around the late 70’s, mostly with IBM. Although we had many friends from the North, I never took up saying youse for ya’ll or put sugar in grits.

Southern Legitimacy Statement:

I remain Southern.*

I have had a lifelong love affair with fried foods, which will probably make my life less long. I have eaten fried squirrel, instructed by my parents to be careful to avoid the lead shot.

I can detect a phony Southern accent on TV or in movies in three-quarters of a second. Shockingly, almost no non-Southern actor can master one. Not even DeNiro or Streep.

*Dale’s been in the Mule several times previously.

Southern Legitimacy Statement:

I think the Mule Days festival in Benson, NC is a vacation destination.

I’ve got a poem with a mule in it, and it’s the truth.

I know what “a little bit of kin” means.

I know the difference between “tickled,” “right tickled,” and “right smart tickled.”

(This one’s for my northern friends): I know that crunchy collards are an unforgivable sin. Woks and vitamins be damned. Collards should be cooked for many hours in a big, black pot, seasoned with hamhocks, fatback or both.

Likewise, squash is yellow and called squash, because it should be squashed. Or fried.

In a true Southerner’s world, nothing is mundane, and everything is a story to be reshaped and handed down for generations. If a possum crosses the road in front of your car on the way to take grandma to the toe doctor, it will turn into an adventure.

If you reject me, my great-great-great grandchildren will tell the story about how The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature not only accepted me, they erected a bronze statue in my honor, but the transcript was stolen from the internet by pirates, and the statue was destroyed during the big storm of ‘09.

My greatest goal in life is to be inducted into the Fish House Liars’ Hall of Fame.

My soul is sprinkled in the salt marshes, the sandhills, and the soft, rolling clay of North Carolina, aka Heaven.

Southern Legitimacy Statement:

I was born in West Virginia—101 years after the 35th state’s statehood came about during the war of Northern aggression. Due to the fact that our town has the state lines of Virginia and West Virginia separating it and the only local hospital being located across the line in West Virginia, my parents had no choice in the matter.

I was raised in Southwest Virginia—a coal miner’s daughter who hauled in the coal that kept us warm all winter and took out the ashes each and every day before and after school.

I slopped the hogs, weeded the garden, cut the grass, fed the dogs and argued over the housework with my brother and sister.

We flew the rebel flag, listened to Hank Jr., rode around in pickup trucks held together by rust and neglect and attended church by force as free will didn’t exist where Jesus and my Mother was concerned.

We spoke of the South with hushed reverence, staggering around under the weight of self-identity that being Southern had bestowed upon us. We were Southern only by the grace of God, chosen people existing in a land flowing with coal and the word of God. We were rebels who were going to rise again or die trying.

Southern Legitimacy Statement:

I was born in West Virginia, lived in Savannah for 3 years, Texas for 1 and have lived in Florida the last 6. I think camouflage pants and hunting boots are acceptable to wear out for Friday night meals. My writing is mostly about my southern experiences. Although I have never killed a man, I once thought of threatening one for looking at my dog the wrong way. All my kids are male.

Southern Legitimacy Statement:

I was almost a “baby boomer,” but like most things in life I missed the mark. And, that’s not my only miss in life. I missed going to college because I was too darn stubborn and thought I knew it all—my folks would have paid my way too. Good old southern folks! I sure could use some of that smart-attitude now.

Somehow, I missed marrying a rich man. I certainly missed the skinny gene and being a skinny person, although there’s one or two inside. I scored really bad at matrimony, and missed twice, but on my third try I got it close to right—at least I stayed with him for 26 years—actually he put up with me for that long. Really I think we just grew used to each other. Now, he went and left me in 2005 for the other side; checked out and went on a permanent vacation.

I always wanted to write, and finally after years of trudging through life here I am visiting this passion of mine again. I believe there is truly nothing better than chocolate and being creative. I love both and love to create.

I also love stewed potatoes, black-eyed peas, cabbage, good old slab bacon or a thin pork chop, fried okra, fresh corn, and some fried cornbread. I have a meal like this quite often as I am a good old southern cooking girl. My favorite thing to drink is unsweetened tea—not southern at all—I dumped the sugar 20 some years ago and don’t like it any other way, right straight, just like life.