©2025 Fable Group Inc.

Vinegar and Char

By John T. Edge & Sandra Beasley &
Vinegar and Char by John T. Edge & Sandra Beasley &  digital book - Fable

Publisher Description

Yes, there is barbecue, but that’s just one course of the meal. With Vinegar and Char the Southern Foodways Alliance celebrates twenty years of symposia by offering a collection of poems that are by turns as sophisticated and complex, as vivid and funny, and as buoyant and poignant as any SFA gathering.

The roster of contributors includes Natasha Trethewey, Robert Morgan, Atsuro Riley, Adrienne Su, Richard Blanco, Ed Madden, Nikky Finney, Frank X Walker, Sheryl St. Germain, Molly McCully Brown, and forty-five more. These poets represent past, current, and future conversations about what it means to be southern. Throughout the anthology, region is layered with race, class, sexuality, and other shaping identities.

With an introduction by Sandra Beasley, a thought-provoking foreword by W. Ralph Eubanks, and luminous original artwork by Julie Sola, this collection is an ideal gift. Meant to be savored slowly or devoured at once, these pages are a perfect way to spend the hour before supper, with a glass of iced tea—or the hour after, with a pour of bourbon—and a fitting celebration of the SFA’s focus and community.

Download the free Fable app

app book lists

Stay organized

Keep track of what you’re reading, what you’ve finished, and what’s next.
app book recommendations

Build a better TBR

Swipe, skip, and save with our smart list-building tool
app book reviews

Rate and review

Share your take with other readers with half stars, emojis, and tags
app comments

Curate your feed

Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communities
app book lists

Stay organized

Keep track of what you’re reading, what you’ve finished, and what’s next.
app book recommendations

Build a better TBR

Swipe, skip, and save with our smart list-building tool
app book reviews

Rate and review

Share your take with other readers with half stars, emojis, and tags
app comments

Curate your feed

Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communities

No Reviews

Sandra Beasley

SANDRA BEASLEY is the author of Count the Waves and Theories of Falling. She is also the author of Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life, a memoir and cultural history of food allergy. She lives in Washington, D.C., and teaches as part of the University of Tampa’s low-residency MFA program.

Natasha Trethewey

NATASHA TRETHEWEY was the Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, 2012–14. She is the author of four collections of poetry: Thrall, Domestic Work, Bellocq’s Ophelia, and Native Guard, for which she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. She is the Robert W. Woodruff Professor of English and Creative Writing at Emory University.

Julie Sola

Frank X Walker

FRANK W WALKER is the 2013-2014 poet laureate of Kentucky. He is an associate professor of English at the University of Kentucky and the editor of Pluck! The Journal of Affrilachian Arts & Culture. A Lannan Literary Fellowship for Poetry recipient, he is the author of five collections of poetry, including Buffalo Dance: The Journey of York, which won the Lillian Smith Book Award, and Isaac Murphy: I Dedicate This Ride.

Shorlette Ammons

Michael McFee

Devon Brenner

Molly McCully Brown

Greg Alan Brownderville

Other books by Greg Alan Brownderville

Gabrielle Calvocoressi

Wo Chan

Other books by Wo Chan

Melissa Dickson Jackson

Kelly Norman Ellis

Vievee Francis

Diane Gilliam

Elton Glaser

Other books by Elton Glaser

Sean Hill

SEAN HILL is currently a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. He received his MFA from the University of Houston in 2003 and was awarded a Jay C. and Ruth Halls Poetry Fellowship at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing in 2006. Hill's poems have been published widely in journals, including Callaloo, Indiana Review, and Ploughshares.

Jay Hopler

TJ Jarrett

Georgia Ella Lyon

Jo McDougall

Rose McLarney

ROSE McLARNEY is an associate professor of creative writing at Auburn University and coeditor in chief and poetry editor of the Southern Humanities Review. She has published three collections of poems, Forage, The Always Broken Plates of Mountains, and Its Day Being Gone, winner of the National Poetry Series. Her work has appeared in the Kenyon Review, Southern Review, New England Review, Missouri Review, and many other publications.

Iain Haley Pollock

IAIN HALEY POLLOCK lives in Philadelphia and teaches English at Chestnut Hill Academy. His work has appeared in publications including AGNI, American Poetry Review, Boston Review, Callaloo, Drunken Boat, and Indiana Review.

Other books by Iain Haley Pollock

Artsuro Riley

Iliana Rocha

Other books by Iliana Rocha

Natalie Scenters-Zepico

Garland Strother

Sarah Anne Loudin Thomas

Jon Tribble

L. Lamar Wilson

Other books by L. Lamar Wilson

Sylvia Woods

Start a Book Club

Start a public or private book club with this book on the Fable app today!

FAQ

Do I have to buy the ebook to participate in a book club?

Why can’t I buy the ebook on the app?

How is Fable’s reader different from Kindle?

Do you sell physical books too?

Are book clubs free to join on Fable?

How do I start a book club with this book on Fable?

Error Icon
Save to a list
0
/
30
0
/
100
Private List
Private lists are not visible to other Fable users on your public profile.
Notification Icon
Fable uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB