Robert West: Six Short Poems
Southern Legitimacy Statement:
The son of a North Carolinian and a South Carolinian, I grew up near the border--in southwest North Carolina, just outside Hendersonville. My childhood neighborhood was bounded by a cornfield, railroad tracks, a cow pasture, U.S. 64., and (on two sides) what we all called "the creek." Except for a college semester in London, I've never lived outside the South. I'm confounded by people who tell me, "You don't have a Southern accent." Maybe I don't talk like a Clampett, but if I'm not Southern, I don't know who is.
