The Spring 2025 issue of Valley Voices is a special issue themed “River and Land: The Mississippi Delta” and is dedicated to Dr. Jerry W. Ward, Jr. (July 31, 1943 — February 8, 2025) “respectful board member, scholar, and friend.”
In celebration of Dr. Jerry W. Ward’s legacy is an interview with Dr. Ward, poetry, literary theorist, editor, professor, and cultural activist, conducted by C Liegh McInnis on July 18, 2007, Charlie Braxton’s poem, “Doc,” and the essay “This is Not a Poem #1 (For Doc Ward)” by McInnis.
Opening the themed content “River and Land: The Mississippi Delta” are “Prim Notes” and “Hurricane Isabel 2003: True Story” by Hermine Pinson and “The Geography of Self: An Interview with Hermine Pinson” by Editor John Zheng. Also featured are poems by Claude Wilkinson, Sterling D. Plumpp, Larry D. Thomas, George Drew, Philip C. Kolin, CT Salazar, C Liegh McInnis, and Michelle McMillan-Holifield; art/photography by Claude Wilkinson (including cover art) and J. Guaner; fiction/nonfiction by Jack Crocker and Dick Daniels.
Criticism pieces include “From Trauma to Triumph: Endesha Ida Mae Holland’s From the Mississippi Delta: A Memoir” by John J. Han, and “Mississippi Masochism: Agentic Pain in Jesmyn Ward’s Where the Line Bleeds and Claude Wilkinson’s World Without End” by Allison Wiltshire.
