Blues Poems

I’m tryin to hold on, people, tryin to keep what I got / Yeah, tryin to hold on, tryin hard to keep what I got

By Henry Dumas

Issue 111, Winter 2020

The Godmother of Soul

There in black and white, with her uncommon strut and wail, Sister Rosetta pulled me up and taught me to let go, and it took her all of fifteen ...

By Rosanne Cash

Issue 112, Spring 2021

Nothing but Sweet Potato Pie

Name dropping the sweet potato conveys a certain downhome specificity.

By Ayana Contreras

Introducing the Up South Music Issue

Tina Turner and Aretha Franklin cover the Up South Music Issue

By Oxford American

Issue 91, Winter 2015

Battle Cry of the Android

We can imagine a fantastical world where time travel is possible, yet we cannot conceive of any point in the past, or even the future, where black ...

By Brit Bennett

Up South Soundtrack

Album recs from OA staff and contributors

By Oxford American

“Reckoning comes before reconciliation and often begins at the table.”

—Alice Randall

Eyes on the South

Fossils of the Future

By Kristen Regan

Hunting for the Archetype

By Julie Dermansky

Between the Magical and the Mundane

By Maury Gortemiller

An Historic Transformation

By Blake Burton

Order today!

Podcast

The Borderlands

A dispatch from the Rio Grande Valley and a performance by Adia Victoria

Brittany Howard and the Greatest Hits Music Issue

Grammy Award-winning singer and songwriter Brittany Howard joins Danielle A. Jackson in conversation for the OA’s 22nd anniversary music issue, guest edited by Howard.

Other Arrangements

Emily Gogolak investigates Dilley, Texas, home to the largest immigration detention center in the country.

“God bless America and God bless the Oxford American…”

—Dolly Parton

Goods

The Ulimate Up South Bundle

Pre-Order | Up South Music Issue

$18.95

Southern Lit Bundle

$30.00