Featured Poet





doris davenport

( Georgia )

for Rachel, who smiles & Christie, who writes & Donna who knew

A simple request for directions any hotel desk clerk in town would know, early  this soft-cold
morning, directions to a new  popular landmark, the Riverwalk, well, not.  Donna said, politely
b/c she just moved here (to attend MUW) so did not know but got the manager who

emerged with outraged incredulity spread over her plump reddish-pink face; affront & scorn
stiffened her un-athletic body then her voice

                  “Whaat?  Whaat yu askn foah?  In alll the yeahs Ah’ve been heah, nevah had
                  ennyone ask for that!” personal insult stretched her vowels like i was a
                  criiiiiminal to challenge her clerkship as she flicked her beady Dursley eyes
                  over me head to 

                  toe head to toe adamantly insisting that it did not exist; she had not heard of it
                  she swole up in righteous denial squishing little polite Donna behind her saying
                  she might have directions / “But I might know where that is if it’s what I think
                  it is, near Harvey’s Restaurant?  Then you get on the freeway and . . . ”  

background to the manager’s challenging bark  “Where’d yu see that at?” as a tiny house
cleaning  elf  rolled up, leaned on her cart and got in it too (“Whar’s she a-wontin ta go? To
walk? The hospital’s the best, safest place. “ “Safe . . .” Donna echoed, 

nodding (& what they say that for but come back to that) so i told Miz HWWIC*, that i read
about the park in a magazine. (“Whaat?”) i told her, calmly smiling, the park was a cover
feature article in that magazine in our hotel rooms

                  and offered to  get mine but she said she had one and stalked back to her office,
                  like uh huh, i got her now !   And came back and slapped the offending magazine,
                  quietly, on the counter where i read the cover to her and turned to the article
                  (Donna still trying to give me directions) and  the woman manager

                  deflated, some.  “Humph.  Don’t have much time to read.”
                  And then, “That’s okay,” as she thumped the magazine and retreated back to her
                  office. “That’s okay.”

Well, no.
                  It is not okay that arrogance, ugliness and ignorance prevails.  It really is not
                  okay, that White Southern psychological tradition of (mis)perceiving all “blacks”
                  as objects, servants, dumb serfs - rarely subjects, masters of knowledge.

                  It is  not good to be a writer -   and not affirm it.
                  It will never be right that wimmin be unsafe in 
                  any place, at any time.   Really.

When the time arrives, firmly & clearly articulate truth.
                  Get directions to your own reality.
                  Find it.
                  Go there.
                  Own  it.

Author’s note: *Head White Woman in Charge

Confirmation (A Winter Afternoon)

At 4 pm the sun starts a
long-slow swift descent
instant night shadows
shift across the valley
Mt. Yonah slides,  backs away
          like a message sent down
from mountains further up Highway 441
near Sylva, North Carolina a whispered unsound
to each hill & hill
shadows as
sunlight dips

Hearing this somewhere
someday (galaxies
away), hearing
this, someday,
the person listening i want to say

Yes.  True.  That’s 
right.  I saw it.
I was there.
Saturday, January 16th
in Sautee, Georgia.  

a massage

Someone said
the body stores memory; the
body remembers knowledge
the brain blocks. i
reject that idea, want my 
body and mind to be one 
not one in subconscious hostage to
the other in (un)conscious   not knowing &
all the while
i do   know better.  i know.

The middle of my spine has the
summer of 1970 on  one
disk, the mountains’ night silhouette 
the waves on Atlantic Beach;
the cold white wine, the sweet noise oh 
well moving
on down that spine 
memories
surge up & down a co-existial time 
in my spine
near my neck a
hard knot trying too hard
a dance step missed,
moving to another rhythm
of my Aunt Sara & Bertie Mae
floating down the Hill in Cornelia oh i know
the dance now, Penny, it’s all up
in my neck but oh.  oh.
the soles of my feet.  the irregular
memory sweep in the balls of my
feet rubbed back to Milano,
Treviso, and Cristina and

“You’re done, lady.” 
Charlene says.

No.  i just  got
           started.

____________________


doris davenport is a performance poet, writer, and educator. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Listen Here: Women Writing in Appalachia, Bloodroot: Reflections on Place by Appalachian Women Writers, and This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color. Born and raised in Gainesville and Cornelia, Georgia, in the foothills of Appalachia, she is now an Associate Professor of English at Albany State University in Albany, Georgia. She has published six books of poetry, the most recent are madness like morning glories (LSU Press 2005) and a hunger for moonlight (Self-published 2006).