Alabama has a storied history: Fewer than ten generations ago, Alabama was owned by the Spanish (who claimed Mobile until 1813), then the British, and then the United States, after failing to secede into a Confederacy. Following the Civil War, Alabama suffered economic collapse and depended on the few crops it could sell or export to exist as a unified state. Today, the state thrives, but its troubled history has left a mark that, with hope, fades with time, compassion, and understanding.

Alabama is among the most naturally dynamic states in the nation, its ecosystems ranging from Appalachian mountains, through rolling Piedmont, to the vast Gulf Shore.

In this tenth volume of The Southern Poetry Anthology, the editors have achieved a remarkable task; they have revealed another wide variegation that makes Alabama so dynamic: poets in the Yellowhammer State with both established and new voices. They have elucidated the impressive and exciting diversity of poets who consider or have considered Alabama home.