Description
Book SynopsisA Louisville Poets Anthology edited by Louisville native and acclaimed Horsepower author Joy Priest.
Conceived in the aftermath of city-wide protests in 2020, Once a City Said showcases the polyvocal communities of Louisville, Kentucky, a city celebrated for its bourbon, basketball, and horseracing, but long fraught with racial injustice, police corruption, and social unrest.
Priest takes the city’s narrative out of the mouths of politicians, news anchors, and police chiefs, and puts it into the mouths of poets. What emerges is an intimate report of a city misshapen by segregation, tourism, and ruptures in the public trust. Featuring thirty-seven acclaimed and emerging poets—including Mitchell L. H. Douglas, Erin Keane, Ryan Ridge, and Hannah L. Drake—Once a City Said archives the traditions and icons, the landmarks and spirits, the portraits and memories of Derby City.
This publication is supported by individual donors who gave to the 2021 Fund for the Arts ArtsMatch campaign. Matching funds were made possible by Fund for the Arts in partnership with LG&E and KU Foundation.
Trade ReviewBook Riot, "Reflecting on Spring's Poetry"
Book Riot, "Recent Poetry Releases to Add to Your Collections in Anticipation of the Sealey Challenge"
Still: The Journal, “Books in Brief: Summer 2023”
"An atmospheric sense of place emerges through the collection’s distinct voices and perspectives....While 'Derby City' is mostly known for its horse racing (as well as bourbon and basketball), it is also a meeting place of language and history. As Priest writes in her foreword, the anthology aims at 'recover[ing] those poetic histories and communities in the poems that follow on Louisville’s collective traditions and icons, places and protests, spirits and songs, portraits and memories.' It more than succeeds."
—Publishers Weekly
"This compassionate exploration of community and home, Kentucky history and memory, and race and resilience moved me."
—Connie Pan for Book Riot, "Recent Poetry Releases to Add to Your Collections in Anticipation of the Sealey Challenge"
"Once a City Said: A Louisville Poets Anthology is a sweeping rebuke of a city turned talking point in which more than three dozen poets seek to disrupt outside perceptions of Louisville. . . . At its core, Once a City Said is a deliberate act of resistance, an insistence that outsiders make space for the lived experiences of those who call Louisville home, a vital reminder of the power inherent in refusing to relinquish our collective voices despite all efforts to silence us."
—Ronnie K. Stephens, The Poetry Question
"'A city can't run from itself.. try it & see how far you get.' True enough, poet Erin Keane. But can anyone pin a city down? Can someone bring in three-dozen voices that limn Louisville's limits as precisely but in more dimensions as all the 'You Are Entering' signs around its perimeter? Joy Priest accepted the challenge, editing the new anthology Once a City Said. Among her own contributions is a barefaced and bitter contemplation of the racial divide between her father and her grandfather. In themed sections, the book considers the convoluted history of evolving neighborhoods and neighbors, the pleasures and confoundedness of local culture and traditions."
—T.E. Lyons, LEO Weekly
"Sometimes hidden, always remarkable, this is the story of Louisville."
—Carmichael's Bookstore
“Once A City Said is not only overflowing with brilliance and beauty in terms of language, world-crafting, and a harmonious collision of voices, but it is also a work overflowing with generosity. To offer a reader the breadth of talent that a place can hold is to allow a reader to restructure that place in their own world. This is a mighty collection of work that I believe will endure for generations.”
—Hanif Abdurraqib, New York Times-bestselling author of Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest
“Louisville represent! I’m excited to see that Joy Priest has compiled a textured range of contemporary River City voices that capture the traditions, protests, memories, and spirit that is uniquely Louisville. This anthology is an engaging read that spans voices, styles, and experiences. A wonderful accomplishment that says once and for all that Louisville has its own dazzling slice of Kentucky’s literary legacy.”
—Crystal Wilkinson, Kentucky’s Poet Laureate and author of Perfect Black
"Poignant, heartbreaking and uplifting, this collection of poetry is something wonderful to live with, grapple with and absorb for generations to come."
—Edward Lee, chef and winner of the James Beard Award for Buttermilk Graffitti
Table of ContentsIn the Shadow of the Spires: A Foreward
Traditions & Icons
Bop: Ohio River/River City
Jean Rabin Gives Africa The Bird
Directions to Colonel Sanders’ Grave
Ghost Signs, Flea Market
Ceremonial for The World Dainty Championship
My City Saw the First Black Athlete Millionaire, Jockey Isaac Murphy, and Afterward the Winning Jockeys Were White
Louisville is Also the #1 Producer of Disco Balls in the World (Home to the Last Disco Ball Maker)
Hot Brown
Derby
Dennis Cooper Racing Stables
Our Derby
An Ode to South Louisville
Westend New Year
Replaced
Place & Protest
We Were Here
In Which an Entrepreneur is the Mayor
State of Denial
Denial is a Cliff We Are Driven Over
witch-auk & me stop over in my hometown
The Reckoning
Community
Battleground State, or In an interview with Dawn Gee, Mayor Greg Fischer says his hands are tied regarding the murder of Breonna Taylor
On Finding a Crisp Apple in Louisville’s West End
Al Green Was a Preacher
Rubbertown
Recycling Neighborhoods
Iroquois Park
My South End
Neighbors
As Preston Street Moves South to Highway
east broadway, or on catching TARC (transit authority of river city) uptown
Spirit & Song
fleur-de-lis
After Everyone Is Gone
The Past Doesn’t Burst into Song Like It Used To
Drunk and Longing in Louisville
NEW MOON TO-DO LIST, OR, I LEFT MY BEST SEASON IN LOUISVILLE
STEAD
February 15th
Ceramic Jesus
Winning Colors, 1988
Midnight at the Quarterpole Bar and Lounge
One Year Sober
Southern Drawl
I Will Tell You What Joy Is
For Hamza “Travis” Nagdy
The Way Out Is the Way Through
from STROLL
from STROLL
Portrait & Memory
Frail
Where There is Smoke
Ode to Kentucky
Sport of Kings
When the Wind Came
Abecedarian for Alzheimer’s
Heritage
Growing Hands
Kentucky, September
Years I’ve Slept Right Through
The Milk Hours
Off Dwight Road
Double Aortic Arch
Autobiography
When My Sister Told Me to Let Her Alone
Roses In the Eyes, Oblivious To The Thorns
BUCK-SHOT
Owensboro, Kentucky, Late Last June
