My Mother’s Parents. Both So Beautiful.

Rural mail carriers. Water Valley, MS, circa late 1930s.

Friends of my great-grandmother's on vacation, 1977.

Ndebele woman selling handmade lace. Downtown Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. June 1994.

My parents were missionaries, so we grew up there during our formative years. I miss Bulawayo a lot sometimes.

It’s our last reading of the season! Don’t miss these amazing poets. BE HERE. THERE WILL BE A PROJECTOR. DOUGLAS PICCINNINI was born in New York City in 1982. He has been awarded residencies by The Vermont Studio Center, Art Farm in Marquette, NE and, The Elizabeth Bishop Society of Nova Scotia. In 2014, he was selected by Dorothea Lasky as a winner of the Summer Literary Seminars for Poetry. He is the author of Story Book: a novella, and a collection of poems, Blood Oboe.

CHRIS HOSEA was born in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1973, and his first book of poems, Put Your Hands In, was selected by John Ashbery as the winner of the Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets. His work as a visual artist includes Over Time Across Space, with Kim Bennett, which was the subject of a 2015 full-gallery exhibition at Transmitter in Brooklyn, New York. His poems have appeared in 6x6, The American Poetry Review, Boston Review, Brooklyn Rail, Web Conjunctions, Denver Quarterly, Harvard Review, New American Review, Prelude, White Wall Review, and VOLT. He lives in Brooklyn. JONATHAN MAY grew up in Zimbabwe as the child of missionaries. He lives and teaches in Memphis, TN. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in [PANK], Superstition Review, Shark Reef, Duende, One, Winter Tangerine Review, and Rock & Sling. He’s recently translated the play Dreams by Günter Eich into English. Read more at http://memphisjon.wordpress.com/

Matobo National Park, Zimbabwe. June 1994.

From my childhood.

My great-grandmother took this on vacation in London. Early 1980s.

Great-grandmother split by left frame. Moose in foreground. Early 1970s.

VA June 1963.

One of two.

"Lucille Brown to Mrs. J. G. Fly, city." Circa 1910s. Water Valley, MS. From my great-grandmother on my mother's side.