DANA WILDSMITH - Honored as Recipient of 47th Georgia Author of the Year Finalist for Essay.
July 2, 2011 from Barrow County News
Dana Wildsmith received a welcome surprise during the Georgia Author of the Year Awards ceremony at Kennesaw State University June 11. Wildsmith, who was on hand to introduce Lifetime Achievement Award honoree Terry Kay, was recognized as a Georgia Author of the Year Finalist for her book of essays, "Back to Abnormal: Surviving with an Old Farm in the New South."
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A Southern Love Poem
A Southern Love Poem
Honey, I love you like I love boiled peanuts.
You’re a little bit mushy, a little bit salty
and I stop for a taste of you every chance I get.
Sugar, I love you like I love dirt roads.
The only ride better than taking you
slow and easy on a hot afternoon
is when I slide your curves like a drunk in a four by four.
The Cokesbury Hymnal would be three pages long
if blind Fanny Crosby could have seen
what a blue-ribbon hound dog you are;
she would have wooed you in common meter,
ditching her hymns to sing your praises.
Longer than July nights in a hotbox farmhouse,
truer than Billy Graham’s prayers,
tighter than the least one’s hold on his mama’s heartstrings,
will my love forever be yours, Sweet Thing.
You’re slicker than Talladega,
as classic as Gone with the Wind,
more hometown than Patty Loveless or REM,
sweeter than Iris Dement.
How could my heart not be yours?
Honey Child, I’ll love you until
peanuts are no longer boiled,
until every dirt road gets paved.
Until ya’ll becomes singular,
until grits becomes plural,
I’ll love you
my dumplin’
my Moonpie,
my cool mint julep.
Drying Peaches
Perhaps another hurricane,
Perhaps another hurricane,
you and I in our windowless
innermost room
waiting for
the walls to stop panting,
waiting some unclockable while
for the powerless days
when we will be
shoveling roof tiles,
shoveling carpeting, glass,
insulation, our books. We will
breathe sweat, and the sweet
of everyone’s food putrefying,
everyone’s drowned dogs,
crabs washed in by the tidal surge.
We will sit up nights
letting each other talk.
Only the trees will lie down.
Remember how
filthy we will be.
You and the floors will grow beards.
When the rains come back
as they will
by the second week,
remember
how disheartened,
how needy we will be
for some unreckoned pleasure
such as these peaches
I’m putting by—
saving for later—
as I have by long habit
saved for you
the last of the orange juice,
today’s mail,
my egg each month
whether we use it or not.
from One Good Hand
Want to learn about Dana Wildsmith?
GEORGIA AUTHORS, DID YOU KNOW?
Since 1964, Georgia Authors of the Year AWARDS have been awarded to Georgia-based authors, with one winner and one finalist selected for each category. This year, categories included First Novel, Fiction, Poetry, Biography, Essay, Inspirational, Memoir, History, Specialty Book, Children’s Picture Book, Young Adult Fiction, and Children’s Mid-Reader.
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