Category: Poetry

Poetry

Carol Poster : Poetry!

Southern Legitimacy Statement : Not a dead mule, but is a dead mule deer close enough? Shapes of Dust Through breaks in the billowing dirt road dust, a shape ahead appears a fallen girl, knees bent, arm outstretched, head turned aside,...
The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Poetry

Eve Lyons: A Poem

Southern Legitimacy Statement:  I am, as always, a born in New Orleans, raised in South Texas woman. Currently living in Boston. Southern Comfort is a Dangerous Thing “It is a sad time for the heart.” – Gary Soto Southern Comfort is...
The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Poetry

Pris Campbell: A Prose Poem Memoir

My Southern Statement  I was born in South Carolina where I loved to snack on barbecue sandwiches with cold slaw on top and fried green tomatoes. My great grandfather fought in the War Between the States (if I said Civil...
The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Poetry

Tom Sheehan: A Poem

My legitimacy statement says, “I have appeared in your magazine, have read and vacationed in NC, and once worked in Tennessee.” Cold Night’s Dark Advances And always it is this Gift-giver, this woman from midnight’s the other side, this darkness...
Poetry

Pepper Smith: Other People’s Brights

Southern Legitimacy Statement: First off, my name is Pepper. Nuff said. Secondly, I’m from Mississippi. But to continue… in the summers I would visit my Mamaw who made “sun tea” by putting a jar with filled with water, tea bags, and...
The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Poetry

Richard Weaver : Mule Toe

  My Official Highfalutin’ Southern Legitimacy Statement  I was born on the same day that George Armstrong Custer died, though “Autie”, as he called his adopted self, and I never exchanged letters. But that don’t make me a soldier or...
Poetry

Matthew Borczon: Three Poems

SLS- my grand father was a miner, then a railroad man before he left that life to live in Erie Pa and chase my grand mother. My wife grandmother lived in West Virginia where her father was shot dead on...
Poetry

Herbert Woodward Martin: Poems

Mr. Martin needs no detailed Southern Legitimacy Statement, he has graced our website before today but I do want to include this: “I am a Southerner by birth and tradition. I was born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1933. I send these pieces...
Poetry

Katherine D. Perry: Poetry

SLS I was born, like everyone else, in a particular place.  Alabama:  not just a Southern state, but The Heart of Dixie, where vowels are long and round.  I spent my early years in the woods (without a gun) searching for answers to how the...
Poetry

Ron Cooper: Understanding Poetry

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born and raised in the South Carolina Low Country in a swamp so think that airplanes had to shift into low gear to fly over it. I retrieved the bones of Quentin Compson from the...
Poetry

Greta Cabrel: Four Poems

Southern Legitimacy Statement:  I’d like to tell you about the poorly shrouded frost-burnt parrot carcass stashed in a friend’s grandmother’s freezer, but it’s not my story to share. I do tell on my housemates’ haints all the time, though, because...
Poetry

Rebecca Baggett: Poem

My Southern Legitimacy Statement: Born at James Walker Memorial Hospital in Wilmington, NC to a Southern father and a ex-pat mother (Pennsylvania Dutch from Tulpehocken Township). Grew up at Carolina Beach, where except for Sundays we went barefoot or in...