Food. Food is so many things. It is nourishment, sustenance, it fuels our bodies as we work, live, and play. It’s something that motivates us, a symbol of survival. But it is also so much more. Food is capable of satisfying not just our biological needs, but our spiritual ones too. Food brings people together, through both process and product. It’s the thing that gathers families around the table in celebration, and in memorial. It’s the centerpiece of romance, the fertilizer for budding relationships. And it’s what you bring to a friend, when they have experienced a tragedy. Food is the glue of society.

But it’s also a weapon.

The denial of food is an unmistakable act of aggression, and it is the base structure for societal inequity. Starvation is a completely preventable disease in America, but yet it persists as a threat to more than 44 million people. To face hunger isn’t merely a product of circumstance. To go hungry is to be abandoned by your community.

In the South, food has an especially complicated relationship to politics. In the land of plantations, Jim Crow, and indigenous removal, the American South has seen more than its fair share of foodway disruption. The massive influx of African influence brought in through the transatlantic slave trade, the tactless appropriation of indigenous crops and traditions, bound beneath the overeaching umbrella of European methods and mentalities, has made the history of Southern food a richly seasoned gumbo of unexpected flavors and ingredients. It makes for a heavy dish, served on a platter forged from racism, and with a side salad of civil disobedience.

Rachel Merritt Jones has made a picnic of her scholarly endeavors this semester, diving headfirst—or rather mouth-first—into the rich history of African Diasporic foodways and traditions in the American South. She is a graduate student here at UNCW, and has dedicated much of her research to studying the relationship between food and African American history. Recently, she embarked on an academic survey of Natchez Mississippi, to explore the oral and culinary traditions of her home-town community there. Today, Rachel is here to talk about that experience, and to share what she learned—and tasted—while immersed in her delicious pursuits.

We live in a content saturated media landscape. Since the birth of Netflix's streaming service in 2007, there has been a steady exponential explosion of online media and media platforms. It seems that every month we have a new streaming app, and every app offers dozens to hundreds of brand new original series and movies. Society has gone from being at the receiving end of a monocultural conveyor belt, to scavengers in a wasteland of varied and disparate small scale and blockbuster offerings. Media companies have had to change their entire approach to the way they create content for audiences, because they have to fight tooth and nail for just a second of attention.

The things that do float to the surface these days are assigned unusual adjectives. They’re called ‘“binge-worthy,” “addictive” — they’re characterized more akin to the way we talk about narcotics, than traditional pieces of art. Streamers aren’t in the business of making movies or television, they’re in the business of stealing your attention.

In the wake of this media overhaul, there is one genre that has come out on top, one genre that has captured the attention of millions, and consistently sits at the top of the charts. That genre is True Crime.

Aidan Healey is a Senior here at UNCW, and he has been examining the murky depths of this cultural phenomenon. Sifting through dead bodies and murder weapons, his senior thesis is dedicated to the analysis and unearthing of the origins of the True Crime genre. He has traced a line all the way back through the decades, to the mid-century novelist Truman Capote, and his infamous “non-fiction novel.” Capote’s In Cold Blood, he believes, is the catalyst for all of our bloodlust and intrigue for scandal; it is the beginning of popularized crime dramas and macabre documentaries. Today, he is here to discuss all things Capote, True Crime, streaming and the intriguing liberties taken in nonfiction storytelling.

In 1925, right here in Wilmington North Carolina, Gertrude Perry West founded her little magazine, Poetic Thrills. It was the first of its kind in the state, and West had big plans. The magazine prided itself in its “national scope and international hope.” There were hundreds of poetry periodicals popping up around the country at this time, but Poetic Thrills was different. Commonly, little magazines like this would relish in the rebellious — they would push back against the popular movements of the time: engage with controversial methods and topics, and serve as testing grounds for new concepts, forms, and ideas. These magazines typically served urban audiences, as that’s where the art communities flourished, and so they catered to a highly urban flavor of discourse and ideals.

Poetic Thrills, however, was its own breed of little magazine. West didn’t just aim to criticize discourse at large, but the very little magazines she would consider her peers. In doing so, she provided a new avenue for writers and poets, creating a space for those on the fringes of the fringes. She created something entirely unique, and artistically anomalous.

Dr. Alessandro Porco has been exploring this curious little entity, and his paper “Southern Tradition and the Eccentric Editorial Talent: Gertrude Perry West and the Little Magazine in Southeastern North Carolina” is set to come out later this year. Today I invite you to dive into Poetic Thrills with us, as we attempt to get to the heart of why little magazines like this were essential to the arts, to small country life, and why they still matter today.