Music
Argument How a Slave Ship was driven by capitalism and racism inside the triangle of the transatlantic slave trade; and of the strange things that befell; and in what manner Nina Simone came back from the dead to her own Country to stop a graduate student on the way to workshop. * * * I »
Poetry
It’s easier than you thought—leaving.Only one night spent sleeping on your ownin a motel parking lot beneath the starsof a summer Muskogee. Your long-built dreaddispersing like gas into a brilliantly blackOzark sky. For once, you are a girl unmolested. You could do this: be a girlwithout a home. Always gone. Perpetually leavingbehind Strip Mall, U.S.A »
Essay
“Cushman is always an elegist, in prose or poetry, writing about ‘the old life’ and its characters, all passing away, as she herself is.” 1. Making acute scoops of the words Several years ago, I was strolling the up-and-down downtown streets of Asheville, looking forward to a local IPA and some good grub in a »
Photo Essay
Poet, librarian, and activist Anne Spencer was the first African American woman to be featured in the Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry. Much of her poetry focuses on her beloved home and garden. Tended for over fifty years and lovingly restored after her death, the garden is described in one poem as “half of my »
Poetry
Some people plant their collards in rowsfor a neat, predictable arrangement.Others, however—and this is reallythe old-fashioned method—planttheir collards in a jumble. They loosena little patch of ground and slingthe seed in a blur all over creation.All over creation—allowing the mindto contemplate a vastness is pleasing.And who would argue with creation?The result of the old-fashioned wayputs »
Poetry
We’re kicking off our Poetry on the Porch series on Tuesday, April 10th with a MIKE drop: our former poetry editor Michael Chitwood and longtime contributor Michael McFee. Both Mikes will read from new works, including Chitwood’s Search & Rescue (LSU Press, 2018) and McFee’s Appointed Rounds (Mercer University Press, 2018). In advance, we’re sharing »
Poetry
I need to start being honestwith my constituents—the mirror and hemlock, the just barely partedblinds and, behind them, my naked body in its easy laborsof making coffee and sighing heavily.I dare someone to accidentally glimpse my nudepantomime of minding my own business. Sometimes I’ve got to be angry to be inthe mood for being angry. »
Poetry
1The scar that flows from my aunt’s thighto the boulder of her swollen ankle is a mapof the Haw River,each toe a Blue Heron. 2My mama’s water is all water, I’m every river rockinside her being smoothed over. 3The palms of my uncle’s handsare the Deep River when he is holding a gutted trout.Always somethingis bleeding. »
Poetry
Threads would cling to them,pants, purses, yokes of dresses,as they walked or trotted across the parking lot, releasedby the four o’clock bell. In the building at my backI could feel the throb of second shiftworking the fine strandsthat, which was it?, held them upor held them back from better lives. Country tunes trailed them out »
Poetry
Poetry
Poetry
Though naturally I love them they are a monstrosity, acute and unruly,already pig-headed on the way from the airport to come and infect me with what kind of mayonnaise is better than Hellmann’s and which of usgot the new bike versus who crashed the old and who’s drinking too much versus who ought to get »