The Southern Poetry Anthology: Volume VII: North Carolina

The Southern Poetry Anthology #7

by William Wright (Editor), Paul Ruffin (Editor), Jesse Graves (Editor)

Robert Morgan and Kathryn Stripling Byer, Al Maginnes and Cathy Smith Bowers, Thomas Raine Crowe and Michael McFee, as well as many new voices. . . Indeed, the variegation of the Tar Heel State’s landscapes, as well as its rich history, is reflected through the myriad voices of its contemporary verse. As with other volumes of The Southern Poetry Anthology, this book—full of a wide gamut of poetic styles and approaches—will appeal to many readers, prove an excellent teaching resource for North Carolina students of literature, and serve as the definitive poetic document for North Carolina for many years.

Conceived by Series Editor William Wright in 2003, The Southern Poetry Anthology is a projected twelve-to-sixteen volume project celebrating established and emerging poets of the American South, published by Texas Review Press. Inspired by single-volume anthologies such as Leon Stokesbury’s The Made Thing, Gil Allen’s A Ninety-Six Sampler, and Guy Owen and Mary C. Williams’ Contemporary Southern Poetry: an Anthology, The Southern Poetry Anthology aspires to provide readers with a documentary-like survey of the best poetry being written in the American South at the present moment.

Specifically, the editors' goals are twofold: first, to re-establish poetry of the South as a major presence in American literature, and second, to include a greater range of poets from the South to introduce a new poetic geography, a fresh corpus of what we understand to be “Southern Poetry.”

Genres: Poetry

232 pages, Paperback

First published November 15, 2014

About the author

William Wright is author of seven collections of poetry: four full-length books, including Tree Heresies (Mercer University Press, forthcoming), Night Field Anecdote (Louisiana Literature Press, 2011), Bledsoe (Texas Review Press, 2011), and Dark Orchard (Texas Review Press, 2006, winner of the Breakthrough Poetry Prize). Wright’s chapbooks are Sleep Paralysis (Stepping Stones Press, 2012, Winner of the South Carolina Poetry Initiative Prize, selected by Kwame Dawes), Xylem & Heartwood (Finishing Line Press, 2013), and The Ghost Narratives (Finishing Line Press, 2008). Recent work can be found in The Kenyon Review, Crab Orchard Review, Indiana Review, Colorado Review, Southern Poetry Review, Oxford American, Shenandoah, and many others. Wright is Series Editor and Volume Co-editor of The Southern Poetry Anthology, a multivolume series celebrating contemporary writing of the American South, published by Texas Review Press. Additionally Wright serves as a contributing editor for Shenandoah, translates German poetry, and is editing three volumes, including Grit Po: Rough South Poetry (with Daniel Cross Turner). Wright won the 2012 Porter Fleming Prize in Literature.

Reviews

[Cindy Brookshire]

I joined a poetry group to learn how to write better poetry and the first thing the facilitator said was, "Do you read poetry?" No. I didn't. I told her I didn't have any poetry books. But I went looking and it turns out I have poetry all over the place, in anthologies and literary reviews and this book, that a friend sent me six years ago, because she has a poem published in it. So I started reading the poems. And I started looking for recordings of open mics on YouTube, and I cracked open the literary reviews. Wow. Just wow. Sometimes the solution is so simple it's right in front of you. In this anthology, I found myself leaning toward the poems about modern life, not nature. But I learned through the poetry group to s-l-o-w down and savor poems. Read them out loud. Listen. Try them on, as if I'm in a changing room with a three-way mirror. See how it fits. So one of my favorites (besides my friend Barbara Presnell's "After the Train Carries Her Son to War, She Walks the Other Children Home," is Jane Shlensky's "The Pasture," about two children and their father helping a cow who has given birth on their farm, and is facing the death of her newborn calf -- one of those messy life-and-death intimate moments that leave you feeling thrillingly alive. Hopeful. Because the poem turns out to have hidden pockets and a silk lining and seems as if it was tailored, just for me.

[Jamie Dougherty]

Blown away by the number of poems I loved by people I had never heard of. I haven't spent much time reading poetry "about" or situated in my home state, but it was a great experience. It definitely awakened some beautiful memories and personal resonances.

Too many favorites to list each poem and its author, so here's the poets who had a poem I loved most:
J.B. Asher
Martha O. Adams
Betty Adcock (the only poet in the book I had heard of before)
James Applewhite
Martin Arnold
Darnell Arnoult
Win Bassett
Michael Beadle
Kathryn Stripling Byer
Catherine Carter
John Crutchfield
Keith Flynn
Becky Gould Gibson
Luke Hankins
Lucinda MacKethan
Al Maginnes
Peter Makuck
Michael McFee
Rose McLarney
Lenard D. Moore
Tara Powell
Jane Shlensky
Douglas Smith
Emily Louise Smith
Robert West

[Jay]

This anthology contains some stunning pieces by poets I haven't heard of, as well as some absolute stinkers, including one of the top five most embarrassing poems I've ever read. Would give it exactly 2.5 stars if Goodreads would allow it. Worth a read for Southern poets despite the valleys.

[Erich]

As with most collections, loved some and didn't care for others, but a good collection nonetheless.