A Vietnamese Mardi Gras krewe.
The Black longshoremen of Mobile’s Banana Docks.
A meditation on rice and belonging.
This Food Issue isn’t just about what Southerners eat—it’s about who we are, where we’ve been, and where we’re going.
Patricia Spears Jones
About
Patricia Spears Jones was born in Forrest City, AR, and has lived in Brooklyn, N.Y., since the early ’90s. Jones states that she encountered The Great American Songbook in junior high in and has hummed from it ever since. She is a poet, educator, cultural activist, and the author of The Beloved Community (Copper Canyon Press, 2023), A Lucent Fire: New & Selected Poems (2015), Painkiller (2010), Femme du Monde (2006), and The Weather That Kills (1995). In 2023, Jones was named the new State Poet of New York by the New York State Writers Institute.