3 poems about The Athenaeum's current art show
south of town
they found their native ground
in cane rows and southern pines
cabins in the woods
and fish fries
those southern writers
mined their native ground
for stories poems plays
dug from hard times
bad luck red clay
and Appalachian hills
while I moved about
no roots no home
until late in life
I walked through a door
from an urban townhouse
into an oak forest
all green
in a room paned in glass
where I sat to write
poems poured out
from my native ground
just south of town
(inspired by Rob McDonald’s Native Ground at The Athenaeum)
— Peter Lattu
July 2012
going south
where there’s a fish dinner
with Zora Neale Hurston
at Gordon’s Be-Back Fish House
in Eatonville, Florida
before walking out
onto the sidewalk
in Guthrie, Kentucky
arm in arm
with Robert Penn Warren
headed toward the cane rows
of New Roads, Louisiana
to meet Ernest Gaines
before retiring
to the iron bed
in Thomas Wolfe’s
guest room
in Asheville, North Carolina
then rising to breakfast
with Eudora Welty
in Jackson, Mississippi
touring the native ground
that nurtured
the writers of the South
caught in photos
by Rob McDonald
— Peter Lattu
July 2012
Native Ground
they are all there
those troubled Southern writers
William Faulkner
James Agee
Thomas Wolfe
Erskine Caldwell
Zora Neale Hurston
Eudora Welty
they are all there
their words
stripped down to portents
fish houses and cane rows
boats and magazines
family plots and breakfast tables
there
back home
in Jackson or Eatonton
in Oxford or Asheville
captured in photos
by Rob McDonald
in Native Ground
at The Athenaeum
— Peter Lattu
July 2012