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NORTH CAROLINA L I T E R A R Y RE V I E W
2022 JAMES APPLEWHITE POETRY PRIZE FINALIST BY DEBRA KAUFMAN
Heading West Raised on fairy tales and country air, the sisters expected buffeting winds, kept their not-knowing minds open, expected to somehow prevail. They mapped the fine points of their astrology charts and set out on a fair day – not chasing a dream but drifting along one, hitchhiking always west, a quiet dare buzzing in their souls. In Kansas, when the money ran out, a kindly couple invited them to the farm – meals and prayers in exchange for light chores. At The Way we share everything. Soon the sisters were filled with goodness and light that shone through them and made their hair shine. They lit campfires, did laundry, swept floors, planted beets and turnips in the dry, spare earth.
DEBRA KAUFMAN is a previous winner of the James Applewhite Poetry Contest for her poem “To Be Emma Bovary,” which won in 2015. She has published several poetry collections, including three from Jacar Press: God Shattered (2019), Delicate Thefts (2015), and The Next Moment (2001), as well as monologues, short plays, and four full-length plays. She produced Illuminated Dresses, a series of monologues by women, in 2019, in Raleigh, NC, and recently adapted Johnny Johnson, Paul Green’s 1936 antiwar play.
Winter 2023