My thanks to the editors of these magazines, where these poems first appeared:
Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day: “They Ate the Bulbs of Tulips”; Alaska Quarterly: “Refugee”; Beloit Poetry Journal: “Reply to Du Mu from the South”; Birmingham Poetry Review: “Appalachian Vowels”; Boulevard: “Blue (Southern Exiles),” “Fort Worth Impromptu”; Colorado Review: “A Charm for Protection / From the Protectors”; Field: “Nocturne with Fitted Absences, Appalachian Farewell”; Image: “Texas Blues,” “The Trick”; Mudfish: “Letteromancy (the New Causality)”; Narrative Magazine: “Mississippi Tongues,” “Southern Gothic I and II”; Nimrod: “Nocturne &/or Aubade with Horses,” “Migrations (White Lilacs),” “Stray Paragraphs from the Year of the Rooster”; Ninth Letter: “The Oddsmaker (The Little Book of Fate),” “Prayer for This Day,” “A Charm for Ghosts (Mississippi Tongues Coda)”; Raleigh Review: “Let it Shine on Me,” “Silence”; Ruminate: “Letter to My Daughter Perhaps Someday,” “Southern Tongues Coda (Precision Dying)”; Sequestrum: “Southern Divinations II,” “Late Sestet”; Shenandoah: “Auramancy”; Soundings East: “Texas Blues II”; Southern Indiana Review: “Nocturne with Horses (Another Exile),” “Ante Up”; Southern Review: “Lost Hour Blues,” “Southern Reliquaries,” “Aubade with Horses (Fort Worth Impromptu II)”; Southern Humanities Review: “Southern Update: Triptych,” “Drought Blues,” “Southern Tongues Leave Us Shining”; Tar River Poetry: “Salvage”; Washington Square: “Interview with the Last Blacksmith in Mississippi”; Valparaiso Poetry Review: “Winter Song”.
“Ante Up” was the winner of the 2017 Southern Indiana Review’s Mary C. Mohr Poetry Prize, chosen by Maggie Smith.
“Nocturne &/or Aubade with Horses,” “Migrations (White Lilacs),” and “Stray Paragraphs from the Year of the Rooster” were part of a batch of poems that won the 2017 Pablo Neruda Prize chosen by Jericho Brown.
“Texas Blues II” was part of a submission that won the 2016 Claire Keyes Poetry Prize, chosen by Ross Gay.
“Southern Update: Triptych,” “Drought Blues” and “Southern Tongues Leave Us Shining” were the 2015 winner of the Auburn University Jake Adam York Poetry for Witness Prize, chosen by Richard Tillinghast.
“String Theory” was the 2015 CBC National Poetry Prize winner.
“Nocturne with Horses (Another Exile)” was the winner of the 2014 Southern Indiana Review’s Mary C. Mohr Poetry Prize, chosen by Marie Howe.
“Letteromancy (the New Causality)” was the runner-up in the 2015 Mudfish Poetry Prize, chosen by Edward Hirsch.
“Mississippi Tongues” was part of a suite that took second runner-up in the 2014 Narrative Magazine Poetry Awards, and were published therein.
Though I’ll always forget someone who deserves it, I wanted to take a shot at saying thanks: To my beloved, Chelsea Marie, where do I begin; to my daughter, Eloise Virginia, aka Weezy—if you read this, years hence, I hope it will be obvious how your life irrevocably changed ours, in uncountable ways—we’re so grateful for your life; to my folks, Fred and Kathy; my brothers Jesse, Benny, Joshie, and their families; to Nana, my sisters Ris and Alaina, and to my brother Kyler; to Aldemar and family; Gertje Wagenaar—our dearly loved and greatly-missed Beppe, and Pake; Canada family; Gary Link, grandfather, whom we miss, and Millie; NJ fam; Bruce Bond, from whom I learned so much at UNT; Corey Marks, another cherished poet, UNT professor, and friend; B.H. Fairchild—“Pete”—fellow pilgrim, who helped us mourn Giddy from two thousand miles away; kindred spirit Mark Irwin; Matthew Callender, fellow writer and artist; the Blockers; Beth Ann Fennelly (and her sweet family), for reading this book, and for choosing me—and my poems—for the Ole Miss Summer Poet-in-Residence, where this book began; to Ole Miss—my thanks. What a place; Wisconsin folks: Amaud Johnson, Ron Wallace, Amy Quan Barry, Jesse Lee Kercheval, Sean Bishop; the Red Hen folks—Kate Gale, Hannah Moye, Keaton Maddox, and the rest of the crew, I’m just amazed by your kindness, expertise, and professionalism—and your patience; my thanks to “Traces of Texas,” a Facebook page run by an anonymous big-hearted well-travelled Texan, who regularly posts historical stories of Texas; those sweet Clarks, GD and E; Richard Sévère; and the Valpo folks, my thanks.