Finishing Line Press published Shelby Stephenson’s chapbook Playing Dead in 2011. Family Matters: Homage to July, the Slave Girl, won the Bellday Prize for Poetry in 2008 (Allen Grossman, judge) and the Oscar Arnold Young Award in 2009 from the Poetry Council of North Carolina (Jared Carter, judge). For more information on his poetry and music, visit Shelby’s website.
Coastal Dweller By Shelby Stephenson
High weeds smart and chinchy sweet peas lush swamp resonances of this plain
harsh winters childhood heaves nights quilted seven times under I awake sweaty faced
terror across my flesh flashes of hog eyes my father swallows whole chewing the goozle closed on a bone he sucks for the marrow sweet