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Issue 117, Summer 2022

The Summer 2022 issue continues our year-long celebration of the Oxford American’s thirtieth anniversary, featuring a specially commissioned cover by Michael Berryhill. In this simmering edition, writers meditate on ancestry, identity, traditional songs, and textiles, as well as the journeys and migrations that led them from one home to another. A special section on masculinity features six writers on fatherhood, war, love, and barbershops. Jenn Shapland re-introduces a story from our archive on Carson McCullers alongside more than a dozen new essays, poems, and investigative pieces by your favorite Southern writers.

Editor’s Letter: Big Brother by Danielle A. Jackson

POINTS SOUTH

Snugfit Eye Patch, by James Seay

Even Jesus Left, by Tauheed Rahim II

Tell the Kids I Love Them, by Jeremy Redmon

The Tyrant, a story by Kaylie Saidin

Channel Orange Taught Me, by KB Brookins

Really Gone, a story by Michael A. Gonzales

FEATURES

A Long Georgia Night
The life and legacy of Mattie Green
by Stephen Kearse

Shaking the Tree
The gnarled history of Houston's live oaks
by Paula Mejía

From the archive
Hunting the Lonely Heart
What Made Carson McCullers so different?
by Elizabeth McCracken
With a new introduction
by Jenn Shapland

POEMS

El Hogar Que Compartimos/Homes We Share
Poems by Clara Muschietti, María Sánchez, and Fedosy Santaella
Translations by Curtis Bauer

OMNIVORE

The New Bend
Contemporary weaving artist Diedrick Brackens reinterprets a centuries-old quilting tradition
by Irene Vázquez

The Begging Song of Grand Mamou
How one of the oldest songs in America lives on
by Jordan LaHaye Fontenot

Cosmic Requilting
A new exhibition by Sanford Biggers deftly remixes the patchwork of history
Q&A by Jodie Bass

On Masculinity, The Power of the Word, And Finding Zion
From the web
by Carter Sickles, Nadirah Simmons, and Danté Stewart

Art by: Michael Berryhill, Marcus Jahmal, Anastasia Samoylova, Guglielmo Castelli, Farley Aguilar, Kerry James Marshall, Alexander Binder, Mark Milroy, Carter/Reddy, Tord Litleskane, Daniel Deslover, Michon Sanders, Cameron Kunzelman, Alysia Macaulay, Tania Franco Klein, Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Diedrick Brackens, Lance Rosenfield, Thomas Barratt, Gioncarlo Valentine, Sanford Biggers

Cover: Untitled, 2022. Gouache on paper, by Michael Berryhill for Oxford American. © The artist