Salvation South

A poem for my daughter

Arkansas-born Shara Nova is an alt-pop icon, acclaimed operatic singer, and prolific composer. She defies category. In a biz that wants women to fit in boxes, that’s a problem.

Home is one thing. Where you’re from is another. And can you talk about the difference politely while you’re standing in the checkout line?

How many memories — of our collisions, our missions, our disappearances — lie embedded in the black tar of Southern two-lanes?

You know her as My Brightest Diamond. She’s one of the most multitalented women in 21st century music. And now, she’s reckoning with her Southern roots and a music industry that wants to box her in.

Two Georgia promoters combine punk rock and pro wrestling to create a close-quarters blend of two slam-bang art forms. And yes, art is the right word.

When we were kids, understanding the afterlife was confusing and frightening. A Southern writer gets inside the head of a boy who’s scared plumb to death.

What we want to believe about our ancestors and what we believed as children pose questions that may never have answers.

A North Carolina poet fills her verses with memories and observations that flow from the present day back into the years passed and gone.

In West Virginia, the state with the nation’s highest rate of death by overdose, faith communities answer urgent callings from any and all.

A Kentucky poet explores who we are, the places we inhabit and the skies that shimmer above us.

He restored an old mountain cabin, wrote a sonnet to an old man and fell asleep, missing the sounds of the whippoorwill.