Sep 30, 2014
Notes of a Native Daughter
From "Poetry in Place" an OA Symposium
"Luck" by Nadezda Nikolova, courtesy of the artist
My father was the son of sharecroppers. He grew up behind a mule’s ass, plowing fields and picking cotton. Redneck was a word of pride in his family. Dirt poor, they worked all day beneath a fierce sun; their burnt necks a sign of their struggle to survive.
In self-portraits, my father painted his skin the same color as the red clay roads of his childhood.
“That red clay is indelible in your soul,” my mother said. It stained everything: our clothes, our skin, the taste of iron in our drinking water. It stained me.
From Notes of a Native Daughter by Ansel Elkins