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Published by Central Avenue Poetry
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
Table of Contents
About The Book
Discover the captivating allure of the Deep South through the haunting and powerful verses of one of today's most accomplished poets.
Southern Bred is a haunting, powerful collection of gothic poems that captivate and transport the reader into the heart and soul of the Deep South. Each poem offers a glimpse into its mystery and enchantment, drawing you in with a blend of beauty and darkness. In the style of a memoir in verse, it showcases Ghigna's southern soul and his tender, yet piercing language, and affirms his place as one of the finest poets of our time.
Southern Bred is a haunting, powerful collection of gothic poems that captivate and transport the reader into the heart and soul of the Deep South. Each poem offers a glimpse into its mystery and enchantment, drawing you in with a blend of beauty and darkness. In the style of a memoir in verse, it showcases Ghigna's southern soul and his tender, yet piercing language, and affirms his place as one of the finest poets of our time.
Excerpt
Southern Bred
In the backyard
of my father's house
a hen's warm neck
once filled my pale fist.
Her place on the stump
still wears my shadow
like a stain.
1952
I was six
when they stuck me
inside the scrapbook
with a puppy in my lap.
Reopening it all now,
my hand touches
the truth of my father
who made me sit still
in that soft moment
when everything became
so neatly black and white.
Jimmy’s Dad
Jimmy’s dad looked like an empty mailbox on a cloudy day.
He wore gray overalls and carried a red bandana
in his hip pocket that hung straight down like a windless flag.
He wore stiff black shoes and carried a metal lunch pail.
“James” sat over his shirt pocket announcing his name to the world.
Little strands of black thread unraveled from it like a spider.
On the way home from school we’d see him sitting
beside the pumps on an empty RC crate
cleaning his fingernails with a pocket knife
or over in the bay working under a car
with only his legs sticking out.
One day a Buick slipped off its jack and crushed him.
That’s when Jimmy stopped coming to school.
Paper Planes
After Jimmy’s dad died
he invited me over
to spend the night
at his house.
On the wall
over his bed
hung a calendar
with a page for every day.
That night
we made paper planes
from the old day pages
of the calendar
just like Jimmy’s dad
had taught him
before he went away
to live upon the dresser
in his little
silver frame house
whose shiny glass
window
became a target
for paper planes
that flew across the room
on folded yesterdays.
In the backyard
of my father's house
a hen's warm neck
once filled my pale fist.
Her place on the stump
still wears my shadow
like a stain.
1952
I was six
when they stuck me
inside the scrapbook
with a puppy in my lap.
Reopening it all now,
my hand touches
the truth of my father
who made me sit still
in that soft moment
when everything became
so neatly black and white.
Jimmy’s Dad
Jimmy’s dad looked like an empty mailbox on a cloudy day.
He wore gray overalls and carried a red bandana
in his hip pocket that hung straight down like a windless flag.
He wore stiff black shoes and carried a metal lunch pail.
“James” sat over his shirt pocket announcing his name to the world.
Little strands of black thread unraveled from it like a spider.
On the way home from school we’d see him sitting
beside the pumps on an empty RC crate
cleaning his fingernails with a pocket knife
or over in the bay working under a car
with only his legs sticking out.
One day a Buick slipped off its jack and crushed him.
That’s when Jimmy stopped coming to school.
Paper Planes
After Jimmy’s dad died
he invited me over
to spend the night
at his house.
On the wall
over his bed
hung a calendar
with a page for every day.
That night
we made paper planes
from the old day pages
of the calendar
just like Jimmy’s dad
had taught him
before he went away
to live upon the dresser
in his little
silver frame house
whose shiny glass
window
became a target
for paper planes
that flew across the room
on folded yesterdays.
About The Author
Charles Ghigna lives in a tree house in the middle of Alabama. He is the author of over 100 books and has written for The New Yorker, Harper’s, Rolling Stone and The Wall Street Journal. Poet-in-residence at the Alabama School of Fine Arts, instructor of creative writing at Samford University, and nationally syndicated feature writer for Tribune Media Services, Ghigna has read his poems at the Library of Congress, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, American Library in Paris, and the International Schools of South America.
Product Details
- Publisher: Central Avenue Poetry (July 15, 2025)
- Length: 96 pages
- ISBN13: 9781771684194
Raves and Reviews
"Poetry is a language that speaks to the heart, and Charles Ghigna uses that tender, heart-piercing language to bring us closer to his southern soul. A collection as beautiful as it is heartfelt, Southern Bred transports and enchants.” — Patti Callahan Henry, NYT Bestselling author of The Secret Book of Flora Lea
“You don’t so much read these poems as fall into them. It’s like plummeting into someone else’s memories—a great rush of beauty and darkness, joy and weirdness. As soon as you finish one, you want to start over again from the beginning. This book is such a gift.” — Gin Phillips, author of Fierce Kingdom and Family Law
“With the gift of poetry, what he calls “the field and stream of consciousness,” Charles Ghigna has sketched a word portrait - indelible images both lovely and hard - of life in our rural, God-haunted South. In this memoir of verse, Ghigna makes clear, as he has before, that he is one of the finest poets of our time.” —Frye Gaillard, author of The Southernization of America
“Ghigna’s Southern voice comes through more palpably here than in anything I've read in a long while. I am already transported and in love with it. I keep waiting for sweet tea to just magically show up on my table." — Nikki Grimes, author of Ordinary Hazards: A Memoir
"I was utterly engrossed while reading Southern Bred, reliving every childhood memory, even though they weren’t my own. I’ll never understand how Charles Ghigna can evoke so much – a prick of tears, a knowing grin, memories of home, questions about life – with so few words. Yet he does it so beautifully." — Kelly Kazek, author of The Southern Handbook
“Southern Bred is a look back and a look forward, complete with honeysuckle and shadows, holy spaces and merciless stains. These poems alternately terrify and comfort, painting a captivating portrait of a boy, a poet, a man—and the indelible impact of the land and family to which one belongs. This collection is one of Charles Ghigna's best!” — Irene Latham, author of Leaving Gee’s Bend
"The poems in this collection move easily between dreams and waking life, situating themselves in that liminal space where insights arise, memories unfold, and time expands. In lucid language charged with meaning, Ghigna carries us along on ventures into the past that resist the sentimental and take us somewhere deeper: to the mysteries of fathers and sons, the suddenness of beauty, the surprise of death, and the holiness of life itself." — Jennifer Horne, former Alabama Poet Laureate and author of Odyssey of a Wandering Mind
Resources and Downloads
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