Possum

Poetry. Winner of the 2002 Bright Hill Press Poetry Chapbook Competition. "Now, from Johnston County, North Carolina, comes Possum, incarnate as the fittest, a perfect icon of human (and godly) imperfection. Wanting, celebrating, and grieving from his forever-returned-to-perch in the archetypal tree (a persimmon, of course), he travels the destroying highway to the shopping mall and CNN. From the ruined lost farms, Possum sees all, tells all, survives all - and all from his own small corner of the world. As Poet, Possum writes with a talented tail, asks why a persimmon is, asks all the right questions, and answers them with...Possum! Clever, sad, lyrical; harsh and sweet at once, the way a persimmon is, these poems make us glad that Possum is "his own legend" and "walks with opposable thumnbs/on feet of open forms'" - Betty Adcock.Stephenson, Shelby is the author of 'Possum', published 2004 under ISBN 9781892471222 and ISBN 1892471221.