14
2021
NORTH CAROLINA L I T E R A R Y RE V I E W
FINALIST, 2020 JAMES APPLEWHITE POETRY PRIZE BY MAURA HIGH
Promised Land For Nannie and Mary Blackwood
Two sisters, now dead, looked out over this hayfield, remembering the old road between Chapel Hill and Hillsborough and who knows what else of girlhood and seasons. the smell of men coming in from field, woodlot, and byre, their own sweat and dried blood, tubs of clothes soaking in soapy water. What should be said and not said. Jim Crow ended, debts were paid. There were wars.
MAURA HIGH lives in Carrboro, NC, where she works as a freelance copy editor. She was born in Wales and came to the US in 1971, moving to Carrboro in 1989. She is a member of the Black Socks Poets and the Carrboro Poetry Council and a frequent participant in readings, exhibits, and workshops statewide. Her knowledge of the land and its history is grounded in her work on controlled burns in North Carolina. Her poems have appeared in various poetry magazines, most recently Tar River Poetry, New England Review, and Southern Review. Her chapbook, The Garden of Persuasions (2013), won the 2013 Jacar Press Chapbook Award.