A View From Mississippi — By Emory Jones

They say we are a crude

Land of redneck bigots,

Good old boys in sheets

Burning crosses

After Saturday night

Coon hunts

 

Well, maybe so—

 

While Detroit rumbled

And Watts exploded,

Our white citizens councilled,

Killed and burned.

 

But then there are

The silver-tongued

Among us—

William Alexander Percy,

Stark Young, William Faulkner,

Eudora Welty,

Tennessee Williams, Shelby Foote,

Richard Wright, James Street,

Margaret Walker Alexander,

Ma Rainy, Muddy Waters,

Son Thomas, B. B. King,

Elvis Presley, Tammy Wynette,

Leontine Price, Walter Anderson—

A wealth of art produced in no other state.

 

Yes, we are bad,

We are sinners,

But sometimes

We are sublime.

~ Emory Jones

Won honorable mention in MPS 2014 Award of the Mississippi Poetry Society 2014 Spring Festival Poetry Competition

Dr. Emory D. Jones is a retired English teacher who has taught in Cherokee Vocational High School in Cherokee, Alabama, for one year, Northeast Alabama State Junior College for four years, Snead State Junior College in Alabama for three years, and Northeast Mississippi Community College for thirty-five years. He joined the Mississippi Poetry Society, Inc. in 1981 and has served as President of this society. He has over two hundred and thirty-five publishing credits including publication in such journals as Voices International, The White Rock Review, Free Xpressions Magazine, The Storyteller, Modern Poetry Quarterly Review, Gravel, Pasques Petals, The Pink Chameleon, and Encore: Journal of the NFSPS.  He is retired and lives in Iuka, Mississippi, with his wife, Glenda.  He has two daughters and four grandchildren.

Guest editor Annette Hope Billings is an award-winning poet known for the impact of her audible presentations of work. In 2016 she brought her registered nursing career to an early end to fully pursue her passion for writing. She is happily working on her fourth collection of poetry. Billings’ work can also be found in a variety of anthologies as well as in print and online journals. Please visit her website and/or Facebook page for further information.

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The Greater Mercy — Emory Jones

Suddenly, she screamed and sobbed —

I ran to her,

And, looking over her shoulder,

I saw the little bird

Lying on the concrete

Its wing broken from

Flying full force

into my rough brick wall.

 

Gently, I told my Baby

To hurry inside.

 

I got my shovel,

Scooped the quivering little body,

And took it to the ditch—

 

One quick jab and the job was done.

But how could I explain to her

That this was the greater mercy?

~ Emory Jones

Dr. Emory D. Jones is a retired English teacher who has taught in Cherokee Vocational High School in Cherokee, Alabama, for one year, Northeast Alabama State Junior College for four years, Snead State Junior College in Alabama for three years, and Northeast Mississippi Community College for thirty-five years. He joined the Mississippi Poetry Society, Inc. in 1981 and has served as President of this society. He has over two hundred and thirty-five publishing credits including publication in such journals as Voices International, The White Rock Review, Free Xpressions Magazine, The Storyteller, Modern Poetry Quarterly Review, Gravel, Pasques Petals, The Pink Chameleon, and Encore: Journal of the NFSPS. He is retired and lives in Iuka, Mississippi, with his wife, Glenda. He has two daughters and four grandchildren.

 

Guest Editor Annette Hope Billings is an award-winning author and actress whose dynamic style of reciting has led fans to dub her “Maya of the Midwest!” Her first book of poetry, A Net Full of Hope (2015), garnered the 2015 ARTSConnect ARTY Award in Literature in Topeka, Kansas. Descants for a Daughter followed in 2016 and serves as a collection of affirmations from a parent’s heart. Billings most recent publication is Just Shy of Stars (Spartan Press, 2018). Her poetry and short stories also appears in the following anthologies: Gimme Your Lunch Money: Heartland Poets Respond to Bullying (2016), Twisting Topeka (2016), Our Last Walk: Using Poetry for Grieving and Remembering Our Pets (2016), and Kansas Time + Place: An Anthology of Heartland Poetry (Balkans Press, 2017) and Revealed (2017). Billings’ poetry can also be found in both online and print publications including Inscape/Washburn University, Coal City Press, Microburst and Konza Magazine.