Readings From Salvation South

Among old tires and burn barrels, a poet searches for the folks who left spare parts of themselves behind.

Samantha Renee Ratcliffe (she/they) is a queer Appalachian poet and songwriter from Kentucky. A recent graduate of the University of Kentucky MFA program, their work centers queerness and rurality. Their poems are featured or forthcoming in YNST, Queer Kentucky, Susurrus Magazine, Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel, and Rind & Root. They're the founder of Hill Writers Collective, a writing community and reading series dedicated to uplifting Appalachian and southern voices.

From a painted lawn ornament to a boxing ring strung with clothesline, Bill Brymer watches what a neighborhood teaches. Brymer reads his poems “Lawn Jockey," "Boxing," "Believers," and "Mucking."

Bill Brymer is a writer and photographer from Louisville, Kentucky. A Pushcart-nominated poet, his work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Louisville Review, Prairie Schooner, Sheila-Na-Gig Online, Tar River Poetry, Southwest Review, Poetry South, Yearling, and other publications. His first book, Neighborhood Watch, will be published by Louisville’s Accents Publishing in January 2027. Learn more at his website.

Excerpted from The Red Ahead, the new collection from Willie Edward Taylor Carver Jr., these five poems treat a Mothman sighting the way a preacher treats a vision: as something that demands a response.

Hear Willie Carver read "Chirp," “Cubist Cryptid,” "Mothman Wants," "Unknown Name. 1867.," and "Family Cookout Omen, 1988."

Willie Edward Taylor Carver Jr. is advocate, educator, author, and former Kentucky Teacher of the Year. His work is focused on advocating for LGBTQ+ rights and creating inclusive spaces for students, especially within the context of Appalachia. He latest book is the poetry collection The Red Ahead (2026, North Meridian Press). He is also the author of Tore All to Pieces (2026, University Press of Kentucky), a fragmented novel about a small town in Appalachia and the interconnectedness of our identities, and Gay Poems for Red States (2023, UPK), a bestselling collection of narrative poetry about his childhood growing up queer in Appalachia. The collection was named an honor book for the 2024 Stonewall Book Award–Barbara Gittings Literature Award from the American Library Association and won a 2025 Rainbow Advocacy Award.

Dad smokes in his chair while Mayberry glows through the evening haze.

Hear Gene Hyde read his poem “Cigar Boxes.”

Gene Hyde’s poetry, essays, and photography have appeared in such publications as Appalachian Journal, The Banyan Review, Raven’s Perch, Tiny Seed Literary Journal, and Mountains Piled Upon Mountains: Appalachian Nature Writing in the Anthropocene. He lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina with his partner and a scruffy little dog.

Rain beats the holler while a record spins inside a guarded house.

Hear Ariadne Alexis Macquarie read their poems “Some Definitions of Rain” and “No Contact.”

Ariadne Alexis Macquarie (she/they), a writer, environmental conservationist, and assistant editor of the Best of the Net Anthology, lives in Asheville, North Carolina. She holds an MFA from the University of Kentucky and a BA from Roanoke College and is a 2027 Artist-in-Residence at Sundress Academy for the Arts. Her poetry, fiction, essays, and photography can be found in Sonora Review, Red Branch Review, Barely South Review, and elsewhere.

“Bless her heart” isn't always a blessing.

Claire Coenen is a writer and facilitator living in Nashville, Tennessee, where she directs Sophia’s Center for the Healing Arts, a gathering place dedicated to nurturing wisdom of the heart through creative expression in community. Claire’s writing appears in a variety of online and print publications. Her first collection of poems, The Beautiful Keeps Breathing (Kelsay Books, 2024), explores themes of imaginative power, loss, and healing.

The moped is in a ditch out by Church Street. How it got there matters less to him than what he's building back home in the shed.

Andrew Kerbs lives and writes in the Appalachian foothills of east Tennessee with his partner Ashley and oversized sled dog Cooper. Having lived much of his life in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky, he writes about the South, Appalachia, and the folks who call it home. When he isn't writing, he's most likely reading, enjoying coffee, and keeping a lookout for new birds to add to the life list. This is his first published poem.

Read this piece at Salvation South: “Dear Ellen”

For twelve years, Diana Keough’s friend Ellen walked the path love asked of her, teaching those who watched what courage, friendship, and faith look like when a heart is breaking.

Diana Keough is an award-winning journalist and professor of journalism at the University of Georgia. She is the creator of Not From a Nice Family, a memoir podcast that will be released by Audible on September 17, 2026.

Read these poems at Salvation South: “A Skulk of Jennifers.”

Jennifer Griffith writes with dark wit about the small arrangements — of names, clothes, and last requests — that shape a life.

Griffith is an Athens, Georgia poet, who earned her B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. at the University of Georgia and now teaches there in the Department of Advertising and Public Relations. Currently, Jennifer’s muses and familiars are two small Chihuahua mixes with the very literary names Zelda and Rumi.

Read this poem at Salvation South: “Heaven Is.”

A daughter’s offerings to her mother, from a Blount County corner store.

Halle Hill is the author of Good Women: Stories (Hub City Press, 2023). Her short fiction, essays, and poems have been published in Granta, Joyland, New Limestone Review, Southwest Review, Atlanta Magazine, and Oxford American, among others, and this is her first published poem. She lives and teaches in the Piedmont region of North Carolina.