Dead Mule School of Southern Literature » Essays

Cecile Dixon – Whiskey From a Spoon

editor — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 16:39:04 +0000

Now my grandma, she was a teetotaler. She wouldn’t tolerate liquor anywhere around her. This forced my poor Irish paw-paw to keep his pint of whiskey hid out in the barn. On cold mornings Grandma would be at the stove stirring a pan of gravy. The smell of baking biscuits came from the oven. The sound of my paw-paw stomping snow and mud from his boots meant that we would be eating breakfast soon, before the sun had broken over the Kentucky hills. Paw-paw would come in the kitchen door bringing the cold air and sweet hay smells with him. Walking to the stove he would pour himself a cup of steaming coffee. As he sat down at the table, he would pull his pint from his coat pocket. With a glance at Grandma’s back he would add a generous splash of liquor into his coffee cup. Then he would stir the mixture with his spoon. With a conspiratorial wink he would hand me the spoon to lick. Without turning her head Grandma would grumble, “You gonna make a drinker out of that gal yet.” Paw-paw would chuckle as he returned the pint safely to his pocket. I still like my whiskey fed to me from a spoon.

Helen Losse – A Review of Checking Out by Tim Peeler

PoetEditor — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 17:16:03 +0000

Summer 2010 This is the third and final book review by the Poetry Editor that the Mule will publish in 2010. She chose this book because Tim Peeler is a poet who’s been in the Mule for years. He’s a poet all of the Mule editors read and admire. We hope our readers will enjoy the review and consider buying Peeler’s latest book, Checking Out. Long quotations appear with permission.

Jennifer Croy Bostic – “Bones of Misery”

editor — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 05:40:17 +0000

I have been humbled. Schooled so to speak. Returning to college has taught this old gal a new trick or two about being herself…which is of course in the broadest sense Southern, but in the more narrow about being a Short “A” Appalachian native. These last few weeks, I have been taught (from a very passionate West Virginia App Lit professor at New River Valley Community College in Dublin, Virginia) that us App’s have been rightly overlooked in the literary canon sense of the word and culture, and language…and well, come to think of it in just about everything!. But what’s a good Southern, Appalachian, Virginia gal to do? Weep Scarlet O’Hara style? Why no, darling, dry those tears! I’ll be damned, I've got Appalachian DNA and that means of all things, I’m stoic. Independent. Proud! My Southern roots have been aptly verified and verily ratified (right here on the Mule) to which I say red velvet cake, yes! Hot cornbread and cold milk, hell yes! To that let's add a shout out to my new found and embraced Appalachian culture. So...If you’s up my holler which is a yonder piece up the way a ball-hootin’ ….you aught knowed it might be a cold ‘un so stop a spell and you’uns share a cathead and flannel cake with this ole hussy. You'ns here? Come back You'ns swan?

Joseph W Horton “Barb and Bill”

editor — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 05:28:57 +0000

Sothern Legitimacy Statement There is now place that compares to the South. I've been around to quite a few place, with family and alone. I enjoy seeing different places, experiencing different customs, tasting different food, but crossing that invisible line back into the South is the greatest feeling. On road trips, we'd pester my father to give us an idea how much longer we had to drive, how much further we had to go. He'd drive on, stoic, minding us as little as possible. He confided in me once while I was riding in the passenger seat that he'd be a lot more comfortable 'once we got back across the line. Just look or the "Grits" sign. When we see grits advertised, then we're back in the South." I still use that logic today. Sure, they sell grits all over the place, but when you pull into a restaurant and see that huge sign assuring you they sell grits, you know you're in the South. Sausage and gravy, red eye gravy, and cheese to put in the grits are a given.

Shelle Stormoe “Great Smoky Mountains 1978″

editor — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 05:25:06 +0000

Southern Legitimacy Statement I don’t have the first clue what it means to be a “legitimate southerner,” but I do have some historical cred. On my Daddy’s side, I come from a long line of rebels and malcontents that first settled in the south before the Revolutionary war. My great-great-great grandpa Joshua settled in Virginia, in what later became the State of Franklin, a proto-rebellion before the big show got started in Concord. The family lore says he knew Daniel Boone, but I swear to God, every southerner has relatives who once knew Daniel Boone. His kids moved Tennessee and then to Mississippi, where they settled just south of Oxford, before the Cherokee and Choctaw were all driven west. They stayed about a generation and then picked up and moved again, this time to Pope County, Arkansas. My great-great-great grandfather Hezekiah died of the measles in Little Rock, where he’d gone to serve as a cavalryman for the Confederacy. Ever since, his progeny have lived right there in Pope County, on the cusp of the Ozarks. I've moved on to the big city, Little Rock, where I teach and write and think.

Jennifer Hollie Bowles – A Classic Southern Legitimacy Statement

editor — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 05:21:53 +0000

I don’t know exactly what a “southerner” is by single sentence definition, but I know its meaning intuitively from my experience, and I know it when I see it... (read the rest of this SLS)

Helen Losse – A Review of Paper House by Jessie Carty

PoetEditor — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 04:16:43 +0000

April 2010 We did not expect to publish another review in the Mule so soon nor to realize this will be the second of a trilogy of reviews of poetry books we will publish this year. But even before I read Paper House, I knew I would write one for this book. Jessie Carty is a poet of considerable promise—a brave poet who does not shy away from herself and the stories only she can tell. Her book of poems is among my favorites. Jessie has also written an essay that appears below this review. Read and enjoy. The third review will most likely be published in July. Long quotations appear with permission.

Jessie Carty – Mobile Home

PoetEditor — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 04:15:44 +0000

Southern Legitimacy Statement: When I started my first full time, career driven job, I was surprised at how many people I worked with that would make fun of people who lived in trailers and mobile homes. I wondered how can you call yourself Southern if you haven't lived in a trailer or at least known someone who lived in one?

Helen Losse – A Review of Paternity by Scott Owens

PoetEditor — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 20:01:16 +0000

February 2010 Every once in a while, one of our editors does something different—just to mix things up a bit, to keep the Dead Mule fresh, figuratively, if not literally. This month our Poetry Editor, Helen Losse, has reviewed a poetry book, Paternity by Scott Owens. Owens is a regular contributor to the Mule. Losse is a poet herself as well as our Poetry Editor. Her first book, Better With Friends, was published last year by Rank Stranger Press. The Mule may or may not publish other reviews. But if we do, it will be because we have decided to do so and the time is right. Please don’t ask us to review your book. Don't even hint you would like us to review it. –the editors of the Dead Mule Long quotations appear with permission.

Beth Ross – Leatherwood Holler

editor — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 14:43:10 +0000

A Truly Gifted Mule Christmas Essay.

John Ragsdale Jr. – Mad-Merry-Go Clown

editor — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 05:22:05 +0000

Southern Legitimacy Statement: A resident of Arkansas, I know everyone in the south drives a green car or truck each Spring, regardless of the color of paint underneath the pollen. To confirm my southern residency, I can ask "what recession?" We've been poor so long, its hard to tell we're living in a recession - and I'm glad the rest of the nation might now enjoy life as much as we do.

Bob Church – The Ladle

editor — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 04:05:16 +0000

Southern Legitimacy Statement: A corny description of Bubba: It is difficult to say where the name Bubba originated. It does conjures strange notions as to its roots… Imagine the pride of the first mother who looked at her newborn child, took a few seconds to assess her little miracle, and then uttered, "Welcome to the world, Bubba Lee Strunk!". It does lend slightly more credence if Bubba Lee happens to be a male child, although in vast regions of the American South, the name is unisex. It has become tradition that every southern family has at least one Bubba.

Settin’ Hen by Sue Ellis

editor — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 13:16:25 +0000

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Spokane Washington is a long way from the South, but we do have our commonalities. When my son, nephew and their pals were boys, they liked to hunt for crawdads along Hangman Creek near Waverly, Washington. They'd come home so full of mud that I wasn't sure which children were my toe-headed own. I'd get to worrying if they didn't appear by six o'clock, so I'd walk out into the yard and yodel across town, "Supper!" The pitch and octave infused into that single-word song echoed across the valley and bounced against the little butte that stood out to the east of town. The children always came home, although I'm not sure if it was hunger that brought them or that I'd scared the crawdads back under the rocks.