[ Phillips County, Arkansas, hometown of the most lynching,
inspired the poet Gerry Sloan to remember the tragedy at Elaine a
century ago. ]
[[link removed]]

PORTSIDE CULTURE

RED SUMMER  
[[link removed]]


 

Gerry Sloan
April 1, 2022
Arkansas Review
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ Phillips County, Arkansas, hometown of the most lynching, inspired
the poet Gerry Sloan to remember the tragedy at Elaine a century ago.
_

,

 

Red Summer

By Gerry Sloan

RED SUMMER

(Centennial of the Elaine

Race Massacre: October, 2019)

The dust devils of eastern Arkansas

are not currents of air,

as we wrongly suppose,

but rather spirits of the victims

of the Elaine Race Massacre

seeking lost repose, returning

as a reminder of our collective crimes

when racism and fascism combine.

I still see state poet laureate,

Lily Peter, sitting on the porch

of her Delta plantation, bemoaning

the loss of spring peepers, as industrial

agriculture sank its fangs deeper

into the loam of Phillips County,

the ancestral home of lynching,*

events in Elaine just the cherry

on top of the shit sundae served

to its citizens for almost a century.

When whirling dervishes speak

the dialect of cottonwood trees,

they leave only this white shroud

on the killing ground, a delicate

mantle that will last a few weeks

then be gone to sprout its own likeness.

“In 2015, the Equal Justice Initiative counted more than 4,000
lynchings between 1877

and 1950 in twelve states of the old Confederacy. Leading all other
counties in these

states was Phillips County, Arkansas, with 254 lynchings; in second
place were two

Louisiana parishes with 51 lynchings each.” —Patsy Watkins, It’s
All Done Gone (The

University of Arkansas Press, 2018)

Gerry Sloan is a retired music professor living in Fayetteville,
Arkansas. His collections are _Paper Lanterns _(Half Acre Press, 2011)
and _Crossings: A Memoir in Verse_ (Rollston Press, 2017), both
available on Amazon plus five chapbooks including one in Mandarin.
Recent work appears in _Slant, Nebo, Cantos, Xavier Review, Arkansas
Review, Cave Region Review _(featured poet), and _Elder Mountain_
(featured poet). He can be reached at: [email protected].

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]

Manage subscription
[[link removed]]

Visit portside.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 



########################################################################

[link removed]

To unsubscribe from the xxxxxx list, click the following link:
[link removed]