Low Country, High Water

Winner, TRP Southern Poetry Breakthrough Series North Carolina

Inhabiting myriad landscapes, including the marshes, rivers, and sounds of the North Carolina foothills, as well as gulfs, floodplains, and the overflowing banks of the Chattahoochee, Sally Stewart Mohney’s Low Country, High Water consists of delicate, often minimal explorations of family, mortality, nature, and the world behind perception. Often dreamlike and painterly, these poems brim with a lyrical and imagistic power, a contemplative force that ignites the imagination. With a Dickinsonian penchant for portraying states of mind through telescoped metaphors, Mohney crafts poetry that proves insightful, compassionate, and subtle. Even as this work conveys the transitory nature of our world and the people and places that construct our lives, this poetry glows with mystery, vitality, and timelessness.

Communion

Salvation can finally come
as simply as lighting heat
in an early kitchen.                                 

You enter, chilly in slippers,
start several small fires           
to find your way.

Coffee, chimney,
bacon, then toast.            

Setting out white cups
bowls, plates—a creamer
pewter spoons.

Light pours in, as

pale blue mercy