Literary contest open to poetry, fiction and nonfiction

The 2010 New Southerner Literary Contest is open to previously unpublished poetry, fiction and nonfiction from April 1 through October 1. Although the contest theme is open, we are especially interested in work that relates to our mission, which is promoting self-sufficiency, environmental stewardship and local economies. We are also interested in works by writers… »

For Whom Grief

POETRY
By SUSANNAH NEVISON
I mean to say how he worked the rows for hours,
hoe steady in his hand, striking earth again and again—
how we watched night settle
as he leaned against the hoe,
wiping his brow with the back of his arm,

and then, wielding his instrument,
began again—
how we quietly left a plate out—
mornings, plate scraped clean
and him,… »

What You Make

POETRY
By JENNIFER WHEELOCK
Across the room, you
are a bowerbird, building
a nest from junk we hauled
from the roadside: warped wood,
dented metal, a painted canvas ditched
like an embarrassing memory.

From these you make art.
“Assemblages” you say,
and each time I think
of insect bodies pinned to paper.
Bridges. Also: arms of mannequins,
large gatherings of politicians,
marriage, pipes, trains, manufacturing
plants, the factory worker… »

Brilliant and startling, Noriega’s poems deliver ‘kiss-the-canvas, one-two punch’

BOOK REVIEW

By ELIZABETH IANNACI

Kim Noriega’s debut collection, Name Me, is unflinching in its honesty and breathtaking in its straightforward approach. These 11 poems are written with such startling lack of guile, one could almost miss Noriega’s brilliance in crafting them.
The book is a journey that takes the reader from womb to rebirth, and the… »

After Rainfall

POETRY
By BRIAN LOWRY
The thought of golden streets
and rivers of crystals and jewels
is no more fine
than our home’s plain rocked lane
after a midsummer rain.
A mourning dove pair, tone of earth,
a goldfinch and bluebird, bright as sun and sky,
a song sparrow, rich in russet and gray,
come all at once
to the short-lived puddle.
They bathe and preen,
drink… »

Eve’s Regret

POETRY
By SAVANNAH SIPPLE

My husband rises
at four in the morning
for chores, argues with me
about the black snake out by the barn,
says it keeps the copperheads away,
He drives to the mines after I threaten
to kill it myself. He knows I won’t.
He comes home late, his headlights cut
sharp through the trees that line the woods.
He smells of… »

Annunciation

*Winner, JAMES BAKER HALL MEMORIAL PRIZE IN POETRY

By WANDA FRIES

The first blood was not     the blood of Crucifixion
but a sweet iron smell     dark clots and amniotic fluid
the Holy water of every birth—
Sweet Maria panted among the white lambs
the umbilicus cut between flesh and spirit
sealing the One irreparably from… »

Reaching Through the Wall

Honorable Mention, JAMES BAKER HALL MEMORIAL PRIZE IN POETRY

By EDWARD LEROY BURCH

I dampen the wall and scrape off
a century of their daily backgrounds,
at first pleased to shroud a wake
in these arabesques,
festoon a wedding in those flowerets,
greet midwives, ministers and suitors,
with thin green stripes and yellowed squares.
But by the seventh layer I’m cursing
the paper’s lunatic… »

Collection offers full plate of life in small package

BOOK REVIEW

By IVY PAGE

Sarah Luczaj’s An Urgent Request is a small collection of poetry that serves up a delicious plate of familial, personal and natural images that dance on the tongue and spill into the body. The theme of internal and external voice and experience provokes the reader to examination of self. Her title poem,… »

Poems in ‘Seed Across Snow’ lift mundane into profound

BOOK REVIEW

By MARY POPHAM

A poem is an experience of high pleasure—an invitation into the mind of an artist, to evoke comparisons, conclusions, epiphanies. These promises are fulfilled by Kathleen Driskell’s latest poetry collection, Seed Across Snow.

Beginning with “Overture,” the poet lays out the principle themes and reflections. Driskell draws her reader close, takes him with… »