The Southern Poetry Anthology: Volume VIII: Texas

The Southern Poetry Anthology #8

by William Wright (Editor), Paul Ruffin (Editor), Nick Lantz (Editor)

Texas sprawls. No other state can claim such varied nationalities, geographies, and cultural richness—a largesse of natural resources, cityscapes, and landscapes of every ecosystem.

With a unique, raucous, and rich history, Texas also abounds with some of the most diverse contemporary poets, many of whom consider themselves “Southern,” and the eighth volume of The Southern Poetry Anthology reflects this variegation with poems both traditional and experimental, Texas-centered and universal.

SOW

Chomping her chocolates
of fresh road kills, she swaggers
through her slop, oblivious

of the piglets she crushed
during last night’s slumber,
squishing through the splits

of her thick, cloven hooves.
The last boar which tried
to straddle her fabulous girth

fractured both forelegs.
She dined on his carcass
for days, grunting in the shade.

--Larry Thomas

296 pages, Paperback

First published November 15, 2015

About the author

William Wright is author of seven collections of poetry: four full-length books, including Tree Heresies (Mercer University Press, forthcoming), Night Field Anecdote (Louisiana Literature Press, 2011), Bledsoe (Texas Review Press, 2011), and Dark Orchard (Texas Review Press, 2006, winner of the Breakthrough Poetry Prize). Wright’s chapbooks are Sleep Paralysis (Stepping Stones Press, 2012, Winner of the South Carolina Poetry Initiative Prize, selected by Kwame Dawes), Xylem & Heartwood (Finishing Line Press, 2013), and The Ghost Narratives (Finishing Line Press, 2008). Recent work can be found in The Kenyon Review, Crab Orchard Review, Indiana Review, Colorado Review, Southern Poetry Review, Oxford American, Shenandoah, and many others. Wright is Series Editor and Volume Co-editor of The Southern Poetry Anthology, a multivolume series celebrating contemporary writing of the American South, published by Texas Review Press. Additionally Wright serves as a contributing editor for Shenandoah, translates German poetry, and is editing three volumes, including Grit Po: Rough South Poetry (with Daniel Cross Turner). Wright won the 2012 Porter Fleming Prize in Literature.