Mama Took Grandma to Vote for Kennedy
Winner of the 2025 Tennessee Williams & New Orleans Literary Festival Poetry contest.
~ by Monic Ductan
It was 1960. The history books tell me
Black people didn’t vote in the rural South.
But they did. And later, Mama said,
Grandma slumped in a cotton field
And cried when Kennedy died.
In my imagination, the field is Grandma’s yard.
She sags onto the ground near the porch.
Her tam falls off her head. She makes
The crying face so common on her in later years.
She must’ve wailed—caused birds to flee
From the tops of the trees, sent raindrops
Back into the clouds. Grandma didn’t
Do anything half-assed. She gave it all she had.
Strange to think that Grandma would mourn a white man.
Whenever us kids misbehaved, even a little,
We were warned, “They’ll put you on the chain gang.”
She didn’t need to tell us who they were. Once,
A white cop showed up to arrest my uncle.
Grandma said, “Don’t take him.” She emptied her purse—
A dingy bag filled with tissues and loose coins.
She said, “I’ll give you ev’a’thang I got.”
Monic Ductan
Monic Ductan is the author of Daughters of Muscadine, a short story collection about black women in rural Georgia. Muscadine won both the Tennessee Book Award and the Weatherford Award for fiction. Monic lives in middle Tennessee and teaches at Tennessee Tech University. Her website is monicductan.com.
Note from the contest coordinator, Morgan Hufstader
Monic Ductan holds up a mirror to both current social struggles and historic events. She highlights racial tension in a way that’s poignant, riveting, and powerful.