There’s a piece of land on the north side of Jackson that looks pretty much any other open lot. It sits at the edge of town just beyond an abandoned golf course and right behind VFW Post 1848. You could walk on that open lot and never have any idea that underneath your feet lay broken pool tiles, aqua blue concrete steps, maybe a piece of an old diving board—remnants of bright summer days, now covered in dirt and twelve feet below the surface.
Read MoreThis September will mark four years of my career at Chandelier Restaurant here in Jackson, and I’ve enjoyed every minute, from my first years as a server to my recent promotion to fine dining assistant manager. Chef Jennifer Dickerson opened this fine dining spot in 2015, and I know the entire community would agree that it has raised the bar for our city’s cuisine.
Read MoreWhen I was eight years old, my family moved to Friendship, Tennessee, a town with a population of about 650 people. Having lived in Des Moines, Iowa, for most of my life, the only appeal of moving south was that my mom had a cousin in the area. I remember my surprise that a place so small could feel so loud. September was the month we moved, and even though the trees shed their covering earlier than normal that year, it still felt warm.
Read MoreAt the end of every school year, I have my students create a portfolio of different types of original poetry. I’d like to think I do it in order to foster their creativity, but it’s really because I’m too lazy to grade eighty-four final exams. Either way, it’s a win/win for all of us: they get to write sonnets and pretend that they’re actually writing their first rap hit, and I get to sit back and not grade bubbled-in answer documents. One poem they always struggle with is an elegy.
Read MoreWhy do we create monuments to the past? What is it about physical reminders—be they statues or plaques—that move us? Why do we feel the need to travel to the places of great historical events and walk the same ground? I am struck by the words of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, the hero of Little Round Top at the Battle of Gettysburg: “In great deeds, something abides. On great fields, something stays.”
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