Gust: Poems

Acknowledgments

xi Acknowledgments My thanks to the editors of these periodicals for publishing versions of the following poems. Arkansas Review: “The Cold Tile Blues” and “Goblin Song” Birmingham Poetry Review: “Carlo Flunks the Seventh Grade,” “From a Nationally Televised Press Conference Starring the Poetic Sheriff, Joseph Kilpatrick Conway, After a van Gogh Painting Is Stolen from a Little Rock Exhibit and Recovered in Monroe County,” “Hot Tamale Charlie Speaks of Rabbit Ice,” “The Magic of Song,” and “Tableland at Zero” Country Dog Review: “A Swiss Vintner in the Land of Muscadines” First Things: “The Mailbox” Gravy: “Carlo on the Hog Slaughter” and “The Cold Tile Blues” The HyperTexts: “Marble to Flesh, Flesh to Marble” Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering: “All of This Only Fifty Miles from the Former Home of L. Frank Baum, Creator of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” Kritya: “Firecrackers,” “The Love Song of Jephthah’s Daughter,” and “A Welder’s New Year’s Eve” Measure: “The Palm Tree Soliloquies” and “Telephoning” Oxford American: “Arkansas Blacks,” “Honey Behind the Sun,” “Last Song for Brother Langston,” and “Waking Up in Baghdad” Prairie Schooner: “Driftwood,” “Lord, Make Me a Sheep,” and “The Mysterious Bar-B-Q Grill of Turkey Scratch, Arkansas” The Raintown Review: “Hot Tamale Charlie Sings of a Player’s Heartbreak” and “Soul-Selling Ritual” I am grateful to Prairie Schooner for presenting me its 2010 Jane Geske Award for “Driftwood,” “Lord, Make Me a Sheep,” and “The Mysterious Bar-B-Q Grill of Turkey Scratch, Arkansas” and to New Millennium Writings for awarding me a poetry prize for “A Soldier Gets Home.” My thanks to The Missouri Review for naming me the winner of its 2011 Voice-Only Poetry contest for “Sex and Pentecost” and to my brother, Eric, for engineering and producing the winning audio recording. Special thanks to my writing teachers: Beth Ann Fennelly, Gary Short, Ann Fisher-Wirth, Tom Franklin, Barry Hannah, Daniel Anderson, Andrew Hudgins, Mary Jo Salter, Dave Smith (who has made Johns Hopkins feel like my second M.F.A. home), Johnny “Road O’ Burnin’ Rum” Wink, and Rod Kidwell. I am a fortunate beneficiary of their wise and candid counsel. Many thanks to Wyatt Prunty, Cheri Bedell Peters, and all the other fine folks with the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, through which so many blessings have come into my life; and to the Nebraska Summer Writers Conference—especially to Hilda Raz for helping me organize this book. A heartfelt word of gratitude goes to the Porter Fund Literary Prize—especially to its cofounders, Phillip McMath and Jack Butler. I am much obliged to Jack Barbera, Tim Earley, Ivo Kamps, Donald Kartiganer, Larry Lowman, Isaac Mwase (who gave me the gift of Shona), Jerry Nelson, Bobby Rea, Gregory Schirmer, Danielle Sellers, Alex Taylor, Anne-Marie Thompson, Hicks Wogan, and Linda Wyman. Special thanks to Alan Shapiro, whose kindness was essential to the fulfillment of this project. Finally, I am grateful to my extraordinary family—especially to my parents, Pamela Jane and Alton Brownderville; Eric Brownderville; the late Edrie Molena Woodall; and Stacy, Randy, Calfskin, and Katelyn Ohlde—for their tremendous love and support. xii GUST ...