dog-eared
Lost on Earth Day
By KIMBERLY ANDERSON
On Earth Day 1990, I took a class trip to Washington, D.C., with my high school history and civics instructor. Not everyone went—just those who could afford it and those really interested in the environmental movement. I fell more in the former group. At 16, I jumped at the chance to get… »
The Birdman
FICTION
By VERNA AUSTEN
The feeder hung from the ginkgo tree in the shape of a cross. Dried ears of yellow corn jetted from the head, hands and feet as David’s offering to the squirrels in hopes they’d leave the birdseed alone. He’d seen them running the length of the garage roof with their pouchy cheeks… »
Outsourcing
FICTION
By KURT JOSE AYAU
I’m not Jewish, but I’m good friends with Sammy Greenbaum, whose father is a rabbi, so when I have a religious question, I go to Sammy, since he’s the only friend I have whose father is a man of the cloth. We play basketball together twice a week, Monday-Wednesday, 6:30-8:00 at… »
I Dream of My Past
NONFICTION
By BOBBI DAWN RIGHTMYER
I didn’t grow up in the country, but I also didn’t grow up in a big city. My cozy hometown of Harrodsburg is basically a tourist town—the oldest settlement in Kentucky. My first memories are of the home we lived in on the outskirts of town, the last house… »
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… »
Longing for Transformation
HALF-EMPTY MASON JAR
By LESLIE SMITH TOWNSEND
It’s winter now in Kentucky with snow the size of communion wafers falling from a mute sky. By the time you read this, the sun will be shining from a brilliant blue sky and casting shadows of gnarled dogwoods on green lawns, pale pink and white petals skittering into the… »
Judges for 2010 Literary Contest
Editor’s Note: Contest Opens April 1. Submission guidelines are posted here: New Southerner Literary Contest.
Sena Jeter Naslund is the author of the novels Adam & Eve, Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette, Four Spirits, Ahab’s Wife; Or, the Star-Gazer, Sherlock in Love, The Animal Way to Love, and two short story collections, The Disobedience… »
Collection offers taste of Kentucky’s best poets
BOOK REVIEW
By MARY POPHAM
Kentucky writers, natives and transplants produce work from contrasting locales, backgrounds and history. As George Ella Lyon explains, “a lot of forces intersect in Kentucky. East and west, north and south. We’ve been seen as Frontier and as Backwater, traditional and renegade. We’ve got mountains and rivers, flatlands and bluegrass; we’re landlocked… »
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… »
