There are two kinds of barbecue in the known universe: Wilbur’s Style, and all the rest. Head east on 70 past Seymour-Johnson Air Force Base and the aroma captures you about the time Goldsboro is fading in the rearview. Pork shoulders and hams cooked all night over a hardwood fire (at Wilbur’s they favor oak, not hickory); basted with the secret Wilbur’s sauce (I’ve tried to recreate it – boil cider vinegar with salt, black pepper, white pepper, red pepper, nothing else, and you’ll come pretty close); most of the fat trimmed off (but not all), chopped, and heaped on a plate with field peas, turnip greens, and hush puppies. OK, OK, I’ve given up eating meat, but I can still savor the memories, can’t I?
When I asked folks a few weeks ago to come up with a name for a new poetry form that embodies the essence of the South, sweet tea and barbecue were mentioned more than once. I kind of like Arthur Powers’s suggestion – Sou-Ku – and the one Ruth Moose has come up with sounds more than Japanese – Sentea. Do they still sell Nestea? But in the same way that our Southern Sentence Poem is a poetic form all our own, I think its name needs to be wholly ours as well, and not beholdin’ to some 3-line cryptogram. Especially when you see the examples folks have sent: we are clearly opening ourselves to the Southern Loooong Sentence Poem.
So I’m still hoping to hear from you with a great name. And keep sending those poems . . . !
. . . . .
Once again, here are the elements of a Southern Sentence Poem:
1 It is a single SENTENCE.
2 A word or phrase has to PLACE the poem in the American South.
3 It requires a reference to the PAST.
4 It captures something of Southern CULTURE.
5 It ain’t got none of them damn Yankee semicolons.
Here are several that people have sent me:
. . . . .
Arthur Powers
I stand on Polk Street
looking East over Oakwood cemetery
and watch late afternoon sunlight
sepia the Confederate headstones.
. . . . .
Diana Pinckney – The Garden Party
Aunt Blanche’s yard dripped pink
punch and azaleas, offering shrimp
sandwiches, ham biscuits, cucumber
rounds and cheese wafers so yummy,
yet not a crust in sight on the scalloped
linen, daffodils and petit fours abundant
for family and friends so chummy,
invited to honor and bless the newly
engaged couple, the bride
and groom dreamy as budding
dogwoods with no one batting
an eye that the hostess batted hers
from her second story bedroom
window, having sampled more
than her share of the punch,
forcing Uncle Edward to take charge,
his large hand now patting the key
in his seersucker jacket while
Aunt Blanche, bejeweled in her silks,
nodded and waved, greeting and calling
down to all, Have a good time, ya’ll,
then dipped as she sipped
more of her own pink sweetener.
. . . . .
Jane Theis
On our evening walk, the Crepe Myrtles,
bowing and dripping from that day-long shower,
nodded us down the mossy path
where the ramps came up last spring.
. . . . .
Ruth Moose – Shadow Tag
Run, run
Feet freeze
Harwood Street, Woodland
stop
Dew cold grass
In the barefoot nights hold
Bee stings, wasp stings, hornets,
sweat flies stay
Tobacco juice, sweet snuff stuff
Childhood pain of
loss.
[Editor’s note – Ruth’s poem had wonderfully complex formatting which I can only partially reproduce on this verpfluchte WordPress blog.]
. . . . .
Beth A. Cagle – Story Tellin’ at ‘Possum Trot Diner
Laughter of square-shouldered
uncles erupts
deep in my throat as a
bucking mule jumps
out of me, hoofing his
hopscotch in corn,
braying by grandfather’s
elderly oak,
leaving my youthful dad
caught on the clothesline,
dangling with overalls
rolled to his knees.
[First version published in The Blind Man’s Rainbow, Fall 2003]
. . . . .
