Southern Crossings: Poetry, Memory, and the Transcultural South
“Daniel Cross Turner has made a key contribution to the critical  study and appreciation of the diverse field of contemporary Southern  poetics. “Southern Crossings” crosses a gulf in contemporary poetry  criticism while using the idea—or ideas, many and contrary—of  “Southernness” to appraise poetries created from the profuse, tangled  histories of the region. Turner’s close readings are dynamic, even  lyrical. He offers a new understanding of rhythm’s central place in  contemporary poetry while considering the work of fifteen poets. Through  his focus on varied yet interwoven forms of cultural memory, Turner  also shows that memory is not, in fact, passé. The way we remember has  as much to say about our present as our past: memory is living,  shifting, culturally formed and framed. This is a valuable and important  book that entwines new visions of poetic forms with forms of regional  remembrance and identity.”—Natasha Trethewey, Pulitzer Prize winner and  author ofNative Guard: Poems