Dead Mule Kickstarter

I think I've endorsed fundraisers/charities exactly twice since I began blogging in 2004 -- this one included. ~~GH

The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature has a Kickstarter program going on. Their goal is to publish something amazing. They've been around since 1996, so they know what they're doing. I heartily endorse this project. ~~GH

One of Dead Mule's [many] quirky qualities: They require each writer to create a "Southern Legitimacy Statement" and include it with their submission. Below is the one included with my first publication in Dead Mule:

Ginger's Southern Legitimacy Statement from July 2005:

Momma grew up an only child in a houseful of adult relatives down on their luck. All four rooms of her home contained beds or cots. Her parakeet said, “Gotta pee, Eloise?” I currently house an adult relative down on her luck. Every New Year’s, we hoped we’d get some of the silver coins buried in the greasy corned beef and cabbage dish. I’ve parbroiled squirrel. I love frog’s legs. I got drunk on rum balls when I was eight. Nine. Ten. Then Momma started hiding the rum balls. Ham — the other red meat.

Click here to learn more about the fundraising project, and how you can help.
 
[Tomorrow: 70 Years Ago]

April is Poetry Month

Powerful poem by North Carolina's Poet Laureate Joseph Bathanti, "The City Jail," about Pittsburgh and a schoolboy and Catholicism, and faith, and fear, feelings of inadequacy and guilt, and working in a prison, and being trapped within -- well, read it for yourself in the Dead Mule. It begins below.~~GH

The City Jail spiked out of Fifth Avenue
in the heart of downtown Pittsburgh.
When we drove by it, my father would pause
and signify in its direction,
never uttering a word. Riding shotgun,
my mother on cue blurted she'd glimpsed
our imaginary condemned prisoner
in the jail's uppermost barred window.
[Click to finish reading]