52
2021
NORTH CAROLINA L I T E R A R Y RE V I E W
FINALIST, 2020 JAMES APPLEWHITE POETRY PRIZE BY CHRISTOPHER SHIPMAN
Solastalgia We would come out of the floodgates and my dad would say “Head for the Lemon Trees!” . . . The older folks always discouraged us from going, out of respect. The legend goes that you were always to bring some kind of sacrifice, so, somebody left some lemons for the ancestors. . . . But now that it’s washing away . . . it needs to be seen before it gets lost.—Richie Blink, from “Louisiana’s Disappearing Coast Takes Ancient History with It” (89.9, WWNO, New Orleans Public Radio) It’s easy to imagine Richie Blink on the radio unblinking when he speaks
words
like floodgates or my dad. And when he says say then lemon trees
something
as simple as
really goes
going
It’s even easier to love the young ones
imagining spirits
alive in the blood the old folks left
when he says or sacrifice.
respect
But when legend of his mouth
slips out
it sounds like ancestor away
like washed like lost.
CHRISTOPHER SHIPMAN is the author of Keats is Not the Problem (Lavender Ink, 2017), co-authored with Brett Evans, and The Movie My Murderer Makes: Season II (The Cupboard, 2014). Shipman’s work appears in journals such as Cimarron Review, Pedestal, Salt Hill, and So and So, among many others. His poem, “The Three-Year Crossing,” was a winner of the 2015 Motionpoems Big Bridges prize, judged by Alice Quinn. A Ship on the Line (Unlikely Books, 2015), co-authored with Vincent Cellucci, was a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award. The poet lives in Greensboro, NC, where he teaches literature and creative writing at New Garden Friends School.