His Most Astonished Drawl

In the Car­olina foothills words sit thick in the jaw. Vow­els are long and flat, con­so­nants rough, syl­la­bles some­times inferred rather than enun­ci­ated. We shed our words slow, some­times recon­sid­er­ing them even as they slip from our lips. When I tell peo­ple I grew up in the rural South, one of the first things they ask is where my accent has gone. […] Con­tinue Reading…

How to Holler

If you find me scratch­ing among the weeds, like as not I am exhum­ing some loamy fil­a­ment and try­ing to tell whether it’s yours or mine. […] Con­tinue Reading…

Be Still

You are like the night, with its still­ness and con­stel­la­tions.
– from “I Like For You To Be Still,” Pablo Neruda
The way my fam­ily tells it, I was a sugar fiend of a child, so hopped up on Coca-Cola and […] Con­tinue Reading…