24
2019
NORTH CAROLINA L I T E R A R Y RE V I E W
HONORABLE MENTION, 2018 JAMES APPLEWHITE POETRY PRIZE BY CRYSTAL SIMONE SMITH
Black Girl Magic in Summers Past for Christina & Sabrina We were magical even in our worst dog days of slum nothingness COURTESY OF IVEYHAESARTWORKS.COM
with no sapphire oceans to plunge, no lake breezes to breathe. We were escapists anyway lounging hours in soap opera fantasies, each burning supernova-bright with ecstasy & stakes – the gall of savoring it all with decadent chocolate ice-cream bars. We could strip down to underwear – our wild laughter in cold afternoon showers drowning every howling siren & world wrong out. Sundown, the linoleum kitchen transformed into a spa with stoved hot combs – our hair made good, Dancers of Black Skin, 2000 (archival quality ink on water-resistant canvas, 9x12) by Ivey Hayes
the flowy black silk of the most dangerous daytime villainess. Making magic from molecules was our trickery – from dust, exhaled glitter. We were revivers, the days dead, yet alive.
North Carolina native IVEY HAYES (1948–2012) earned a BA from NC Central University and and an MFA at UNC Greensboro. He spent much of his professional life in Wilmington, NC, where he was known for painting abstract figures in bold colors. He received many accolades in his career, including the North Carolina Azalea Festival Master of Arts in 2005 and the Order of the Long Leaf Pine Award in 2006. His work has been exhibited across the state and in such cities as Boston, New York, and Washington, DC (a solo exhibit at the Capitol Rotunda).
CRYSTAL SIMONE SMITH lives in Durham, NC. She is the author of three poetry collections, Routes Home (Finishing Line Press, 2013), Running Music (Longleaf Press, 2014), and Wild Flowers (2016), a collection of haiku, senryu, and haiga made possible by an Absher Initiatives Literary Arts Grant Her work has appeared in numerous journals, including Callaloo, Nimrod, Obsidian II: Literature in the African Diaspora, African American Review, and Mobius: The Journal of Social Change. Smith is an alumna of the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop and the Yale Summer Writers Conference. She holds an MFA from Queens University of Charlotte, teaches composition and creative writing, and is the Managing Editor of Backbone Press.