2008 BELLDAY PRIZE AWARD WINNER

Family Matters:  Homage to July, the Slave Girl “An intense and heart-breaking poetic narrative which, in its exploration of historical and personal materials, holds affinities to the work of Susan Howe and to James Agee’s classic Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Family Matters is a strenuous questioning — and exposure — of the fictions of ownership, whether of persons or places, graves or farms.” --Allen Grossman, final judge, 2008 Bellday Prize competition 2008. Bellday Books. $14 plus $2 shipping & handling. Available from the publisher at www.belldaybooks.com

Possum "Shelby Stephenson's Possum is a mysterious, mystical, and courageous creature, as spooky and suggestive as a half-seen haint. At every turn, Possum the animal and Possum the chapbook invite allegorical, symbolic, and emblematic readings that the critter and the poems then evade. Reckless and thoughtful, suffering and victorious, the man and the marsupial sing in close harmony down in the murky swamps under a midnight sky. When the moon is at the zenith, you can hear them: 'Raccoon up a simmon tree, possum on the ground...' Is it harmony with a single voice?" --Fred Chappell. 2004. Bright Hill Press.

Fiddledeedee A long lyric poem. It's a journey, reflecting my joys, fears, thoughts as I was growing up. It includes my mother, father, sister and two brothers. It took 15 years to complete. Then I wrote the prologue about moving back to this place I left 40 years ago. 2001. The Bunny and the Crocodile Press.	Greatest Hits 1978-2000 A collection of some favorite poems written over the years. Narratives about tobacco-barning, fox-hunting. Lyrics about hummingbirds, my mother sowing soda in a cornfield, a meditation about the slaves. 2002. Pudding House Publications.	Carolina Spring: An Anthology of North Carolina Poets Shelby Stephenson, Editor. A representative sampling of a continuing explosion of poetry being written in North Carolina. 1999. Shelby Stephenson.	Poor People A series of portraits, poems about the tenant farmers (white and black) and their children. We grew up together. The times were hard. We swapped work in order to survive. 1998. Nightshade Press
	Out of print	Out of print	Out of print
The Persimmon Tree Carol A long lyric-narrative poem about my father (and mother). 1990. Nightshade Press. Reprinted 2002. Juniper Press.	Finch’s Mash Lyric poems such as “I Feel the Grief of Growing Up,” “Hogs,” “Mules,” “Beginnings.” 1990. St. Andrews Press.	Middle Creek Poems Lyric poems reflecting my memories of growing up in the 1940's and 1950's, such as “Creekwalk,” “To Be Borne,” and “Hunt of Bended Knee.” 1979. Blue Coot Press.	Carolina Shout! An early version of part of what became Fiddledeedee. 1985. Playwright's Fund of North Carolina (Poetry Chapbook Competition Prizewinner).

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