dog-eared
Southeastern landscape finds its Mary Oliver in Janisse Ray’s ‘House of Branches’
BOOK REVIEW
By CHRISTOPHER MARTIN
A House of Branches
Janisse Ray
Wind Publications, 2010
Upon the publication of Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, Janisse Ray’s prose testament to the rich human history and the devastated longleaf pinewoods of south Georgia, a reviewer for the New York Times declared, “the forests of the Southeast find their Rachel Carson.” A little over… »
‘The Hands of Strangers:’ A Quick and Satisfying Book for Summer
BOOK REVIEW
By BETH BROWNE
The Hands of Strangers
Michael J. Smith
Main Street Rag, 2011
Read a great novella lately? Neither had I until someone gave me a copy of Michael F. Smith’s The Hands of Strangers. I picked it up and could not put it down. And best of all, I only had to neglect… »
Pushcart Prize nominees announced
It’s with great pleasure that we nominate the following works from New Southerner for the Pushcart Prize:
“Annunciation” by Wanda Fries (poetry)
“My Black Dog” by Wanda Fries (poetry)
“Something in the Wash” by Angela Jackson-Brown (fiction)
“The Beauregard Group” by Leslie Whatley (fiction)
“How to Save 89 Cents” by Michele Niesen (nonfiction)
“Leanin’ Back”… »
A Beautiful Violence: Charles Dodd White’s slim new novel packs power
BOOK REVIEW
By SHELDON LEE COMPTON
Lambs of Men
Charles Dodd White
Casperian Books, 2010
It’s a slim book. One that will surprise you, though, like so many other compact stories that have the power of an atom.
From the first chapter of Charles Dodd White’s Lambs of Men, as Hiram Tobit readies to return to his mountain home from… »
Novel, poetry collection or concept album? Keane masters the ring and the written word
BOOK REVIEW
By MARIANNE WORTHINGTON
Death-Defying Acts: New Poems
Erin Keane
WordFarm, 2010
Louisville poet and journalist Erin Keane’s haunting new collection of circus-themed poems comes with a price: reading this book forces us to admit our fascination for freaks and fools and “the exquisite horror of a sideshow.” Like a ringmaster, Keane balances between spectacle and reality and leads… »
Farming Cotton
FICTION
BY LISA GROEN BRANER
1.
Tonight the voices from the house are louder than usual. Daddy’s trying to convince Granddad of something. “You wait, it’s coming,” is all I hear before the radio blurs his voice again.
In the light of the moon, I lie in a field of tall grass not far from my grandparents’ house. The… »
Homing
POETRY
BY CHRISTINA LOVIN
The cemetery quiet, no visitors today
save for the somber pigeon holding vigil
on the drive. Some spirit of the dead, earthbound
flight of a lost soul? A bird of common gray
and royal purple, banded on both legs—
one in white for courage, the other black
for counted losses. How many
miles from where she started, stunned
and fallen from… »
My cooking is what I call creative
NONFICTION
By BEEBE BARKSDALE-BRUNER
My cooking talent is what I call creative, never fixing anything the same way twice. If I have a recipe in front of me, I don’t follow it. I get ideas on shortcuts. I’ve been that way all my life. My first grade teacher, Miss Redwine, noticed I was loath to listen and… »
My Black Dog
POETRY
BY WANDA FRIES
I have tried everything to get rid of him:
left him with friends and in kennels
or in caves where he disappears not even a shadow
but his eyes flicker like flames adjust to the dark—
I am hardly back into the sunlight
before I sense him already behind me, following me home—
I would poison him but what… »
[parts of the spine and how they work]
NONFICTION
By ANNA GILES
[lumbar spine — “the lowest part of the spine”]
It’s your seventh grade year, and you are fidgeting in a long line in your middle school’s gym. You run your tongue over your braces; your hands are clasped in front of you as you shuffle forward. At the front of the line, you… »
