Often celebrated as the Literary State of the South, and quoted to have more writers per capita than any other state in the Union, Mississippi remains famous for its fiction writers: William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Barry Hannah, Willie Morris, and Walker Percy, among many others. Relatively unsung are those who dedicate themselves to the older craft of poetry. This book seeks to alleviate that absence and collect the best poetry written in contemporary Mississippi, to share with curious readers the luminous verses this beautiful state engenders. The second edition of The Southern Poetry Anthology, Volume II: Mississippi , seeks to continue the aspiration of the series: to take a snapshot of contemporary poetry in the American South and to observe how the ‘sense of place’ manifests itself in the work of native poets or those just passing through. Featured in this edition, poets Natasha Trethewey, Gordon Weaver, Angela Ball, Paul Ruffin, Julia Johnson, T.R. Hummer, and many others reveal the Magnolia State as a place in which brilliant art continues to bloom.