Yes, there is barbecue, but that’s just one course of the meal. With Vinegar and Char the Southern Foodways Alliance celebrates twenty years of symposia by offering a collection of poems that are by turns as sophisticated and complex, as vivid and funny, and as buoyant and poignant as any SFA gathering.
The roster of contributors includes Natasha Trethewey, Robert Morgan, Atsuro Riley, Adrienne Su, Richard Blanco, Ed Madden, Nikky Finney, Frank X Walker, Sheryl St. Germain, Molly McCully Brown, and forty-five more. These poets represent past, current, and future conversations about what it means to be southern. Throughout the anthology, region is layered with race, class, sexuality, and other shaping identities.
With an introduction by Sandra Beasley, a thought-provoking foreword by W. Ralph Eubanks, and luminous original artwork by Julie Sola, this collection is an ideal gift. Meant to be savored slowly or devoured at once, these pages are a perfect way to spend the hour before supper, with a glass of iced tea—or the hour after, with a pour of bourbon—and a fitting celebration of the SFA’s focus and community.
Foreword by: John T. Edge, W. Ralph Eubanks
Contributions by: Kevin Young, Natasha Trethewey, Frank X Walker, Rebecca Gayle Howell, Shorlette Ammons, Michael McFee, Jake Adam York, Elisa Albo, Elizabeth Alexander, Richard Blanco, Devon Brenner, Gaylord Brewer, Jericho Brown, Molly McCully Brown, Nickole Brown, Greg Alan Brownderville, Gabrielle Calvocoressi, Wo Chan, Melissa Dickson Jackson, Kelly Norman Ellis, Beth Fennelly, Nikky Finney, Vievee Francis, Diane Gilliam, Nikki Giovanni, Elton Glaser, Sean Hill, Jay Hopler, TJ Jarrett, Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, Ashley M. Jones, Georgia Ella Lyon, Ed Madden, Jo McDougall, Rose McLarney, Erika Meitner, Robert Morgan, Naomi Shihab Nye, Jon Pineda, Iain Haley Pollock, Lynn Powell, Artsuro Riley, Iliana Rocha, Natalie Scenters-Zepico, Brian Spears, Sheryl St. Germain, Garland Strother, Adrienne Su, Sarah Anne Loudin Thomas, Jon Tribble, Adam Vines, Caroline Randall Williams, L. Lamar Wilson, Sylvia Woods, Marianne Worthington
Illustrated by: Julie Sola
