North Carolina Miscellany
N C L R ONLINE
115
2023 JAMES APPLEWHITE POETRY PRIZE SEMIFINALIST BY JOHNNY CATE
Dogwood I knew every crook and vantage of its branches, high havens in the daylight that illuminated the cool cream of the blooms. Alone in a white T three times my size and hanging off a shoulder, I’d climb and place my bare feet where they’d made the bark smooth and move limb to limb with arboricole confidence. As I climbed higher, squirrels would acrobatically bail, slinging themselves from twigs to catch and clamber up the oak across the yard, vanishing in its gargantuan leanings. For hours at a time I’d hide and listen to nothing but the slish on slish of leaves around me, breathing, slowly, with lungs as pink as the edges of those petals, yet unaware I had lungs at all – unaware there was a single thing, within me or without, that I could not see.
COURTESY OF THE ARTIST
Carolina Dogwoods I (acrylic on board, 24x20) by Bre Barnett Crowell
JOHNNY CATE is a poet, copywriter, and vintage T-shirt collector from Asheville, NC. He is currently an MFA candidate at the Vermont College of Fine Arts and lives in Black Mountain, NC, with his wife Luci and their newborn son, Jaden.
NC native BRE BARNETT CROWELL earned a BA in Studio Art at UNC Chapel Hill. She is a Master Pastelist and Signature Member of the Pastel Society of America, an Eminent Pastelist and Circle of Excellence Member of the International Association of Pastel Societies, and a founding board member of the Piedmont Pastel Society. Her art was selected for the 2023 US Embassy in Geneva, Switzerland, by the Art in Embassies Program, US State Department. In NC, her art has shown at Hickory Museum of Art and Cameron Museum of Art. Publications include North Light’s Abstract Painting: A Celebration of Contemporary Art.