Tribute to Doris Betts

Producing stories and poems may not be a good way to make a living, but it's a wonderful way to make a life.

Portfolio: Paintings

There’s a quality here I tap into. It’s about the light, the color, the people. Relationship and kindness are valued highest.

Remembering Cy Twombly

Cy Twombly’s paintings are perhaps best understood as a type of visual poetry. Fragmented, discontinuous, yet rich in information and deeply evocative, they speak to us in a voice beyond...

McCormick Field

I watch the old man keeping score a few rows down, a few seats south here at the new McCormick Field, each pitch, each out, each hit, each run recorded in those blue boxes whose empty...

The Last Wolverine

Cobb found the crack in the American psyche where athletic competition confuses itself with warfare, and he pushed until it was just wide enough to let him through.

Caving

He tries to back up, find the tunnel he just came from and worm his way to the entrance. Arms straight out in front, feeling blindly, he hits wall and works his way along until he feels an...

Portfolio: Photographs

These roadside proclamations are simple, pragmatic forms of communication. But they seem to have an underlying motive, to influence behavior in some way—to divert, tempt, convert,...

Traveling to the Newer South of the Border

For me, the sombrero is a powerful symbol of the South and a reminder that the commercialized and hybrid South has always been my South.

It’s a Southern Fried World

The melting pot in which southern food has simmered for decades, if not centuries, has always been seasoned by global cuisines.

Beach Music: History and Myth

Despite the fact that the myriad musical and social strands that ultimately coincided to give rise to the Beach and Shag Music phenomena are hydra-headed, murky, and ambiguous, the oft-told...

Fast Dance

An invasion occurred from the late fifties through the sixties in the southern states of North and South Carolina. Hordes of kids stormed the beaches, not with guns or cannon, but with...

Cooling Off the Sultry Backwaters: A Passage

Kerala’s backwaters—fresh far from the sea, brackish near—also boast fish, and our houseboat passed many a hopeful man hovering over the surface with a crossbow or homemade rod.

Summer 2012

When we typically think of summertime, we think of travel, new and unfamiliar territory, adventures, gathering points, and of course sunshine. In this issue, we hit the proverbial road, learning about people and places up and down America’s East Coast, from Florida to New York City, with a side trip to India. Along the way, we encounter a constantly evolving South – one that is made of the old and the new, of natives and newcomers – some of whom embrace the confluence of cultures and ideas, and others who are nostalgic for the past. As we move through these places, we pause to remember Doris Betts and Cy Twombly, both of whom have left an indelible impression on the imaginations of authors and artists for generations to come. As summer comes to an end with cooler weather on the way, hopefully this issue will inspire you to remember the poetry of your own summers.