Here’s the one and only Emalee Gross reading “Oratorio for Autumn” by North Carolina poet Sally Buckner. Buckner taught at Peace College in my hometown, Raleigh, until her death in 2018 at the age of 87.
I found this copy of Buckner’s debut collection Strawberry Harvest (1996) at the New Hanover County library sale in 2023. I also got a copy of the anthology Word and Witness: 100 Years of NC Poetry, which she edited in 1999. She compiled the anthology Our Words, Our Ways: Reading and Writing in North Carolina as well, and as a life-long educator and North Carolinian, she was devoted to the state’s literary community.
It feels nice to read local.
A magnificat, exultant in sun-brushed scarlet
Here’s Em reading one that’s perfect for October, called Ghosts Do Not Scare Me:
so that’s a vote for living
In the section “Songs of Holcombe County,” she writes longer, narrative poems in dialect depicting “colorful” southern characters, using delightful vernacular like “hootchie-cootchie at the county fair.”
Lord knows we love to see it. Below are my readings of the poems in that section.
Old Ralph:
Betty Lou:
Maintenance:
Poor Ezra:
Sunday Dinner:
Rising:
Her shorter poems are no less entertaining, often lyrical and reflective, still interested in family, the region, and the passage of time. Here’s Emalee reading a poem about the speaker’s grandfather titled Photographer:
It’s fascinating to read this just two decades later, where the exponential differences in what we consider “modern” technology could make the poem’s argument seem quaint. But I think communal concerns over the rapidity of technological interference in art/daily living in the 2020s onwards just strengthens its resonance.
Here’s me reading an ars poetica called Prospector:
& the final poem in the collection, Artist:
Thanks to Emalee! Thanks to you for listening/reading!
xoxo Gigi
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