The Mercies of Perry County

Until now Perry County has not been included on the literary map of Mississippi. My debut collection of poems changes that atlas. These poems, some historical, other's lyrics, record the topography of my memory of this county where I grew up filled with stern pine trees, fields dense with corn, snakes and blood, cheating husbands and wives, tobacco and hate chewing men, chinaberry trees, catfish, cows pasturing in trees, and mud pies cooked in an old wood stove, and Black souls that are still with me. My poems emerge from a feminine vision found in Southern letters from Eudora Welty, Alice Walker, Flannery O'Connor and Jesmyn Ward. As the trees in the Pine Belt speak with voices you do not always want to hear, these poems give voice to the mercies and miseries. The trees refuse to be silent them. Nor do these poems. Read more