Poetry

Ray Whitaker : Poetry!

SOUTHERN LEGITIMACY STATEMENT- Been living in North Carolina regular-like some forty years now, and was in-and-outta ‘here all my life before that. I have always thought of myself as a citizen of the world, however I notice that I say...
Poetry

Alexander Payne Morgan : Poetry!

SOUTHERN LEGITIMACY: I was born in Savannah and lived all my life in Georgia until I graduated from the University of Georgia. My mother was born in Paducah, Kentucky, and her mother in a village in west Tennessee too small...
Poetry

Allison Chestnut : Poetry!

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Born in Florida, I received my first round of higher education at the last state supported nunnery: Mississippi University for Women, where I majored in music, theater and religion: like all professional spinsters, I can sing, read,...
Poetry

Norvin Dickerson: Poetry!

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was conceived on a houseboat on the Ashley River in Charleston, South Carolina and was born in Monroe, North Carolina first year of the Baby Boomers. I got my undergraduate degree from the University of North...
Poetry

Jimmie Ware: Poetry!

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I love magnolia trees and the scent of pine. My favorite aunt is name is Nellie Bee. I made mud pies in red dirt. I was born in Grove Hill and it holds priceless memories. I am a...
Essays

T. K. Tolbert: Miss Geneva (an essay)

My Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in Southern Ohio, where driving forty five minutes one way puts you in West Virginia and thirty five minutes the other way puts you in Kentucky....
Poetry

May Jordan : Poetry!

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I went through the Marine Corps boot camp at Paris Island, South Carolina in 1969. I married a Texan from Brownsville, and you cannot get much further south than that. We had a hound named “Dog,” and a...
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
Fiction

Nelson Lowhim: The Artist

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Was in the south when in the Army. Good times. Or not. Here’s a piece about the scars some carry along with their long and sordid history. The Artist I once knew a painter, artist type, his face...
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...