An interview with poet Raye Hendrix

By Jason Gordy Walker

Raye Hendrix is the author of two poetry chapbooks, Fire Sermons (Ghost City Press, 2021) and Every Journal is a Plague Journal (Bottlecap Press, 2021). Her first full-length collection is What Good Is Heaven (Texas Review Press, 2024). Hendrix and Jason Gordy Walker discussed Hendrix’s debut and its success over email from March 10 to April 10, 2025. 

Walker: Congratulations on your debut! On the dedication page, you proclaim it is “for my kinfolk — for the Southern queers — for the places that don’t love us back.” Is there a particular poem you think best addresses these groups and why?  

Hendrix: Thank you! After working on it for a hair shy of a decade, it still feels surreal. And thank you for bringing up the dedication. “Pinson” is the poem that feels like the truest answer, especially for the last section, for the places we love that don’t love us back. While I’d written a few poems that made it into the book while in school at Auburn, when I began writing in earnest toward the project of the book I was living in Texas, and I was trying so hard to write my way out of Alabama. As a queer, nonbinary woman, growing up in Pinson (or really, unincorporated Blount County) had wounded me, and I used to dream about getting out, and it surprised (and at first, irritated) me that all I could write about in Texas was Alabama. I was homesick, and I was angry that I was homesick—because isn’t this what I wanted—to not be home? “Pinson” is a negotiation of that inner turmoil: I hate our state legislators who treat difference as a disease and use the Bible as a blunt object; I love the valleys and rivers and animals and people; I hate our racist history; I love our culture of kindness and slower living. It’s my home and I love it, no matter how complicated it may be. And I think “Pinson” hits the other two groups as well—my kinfolk and the Southern queers—because home is a place, but it’s where your people are, too. 

Walker: In your collection, “the Bible belt” has a double-meaning—it’s the place, yes, and also the weapon used against those who do not fit the status quo: queer people, independent women, freethinkers, etc. What a shame, really, because Christ loved everyone, didn’t cast stones. Your poems call out hypocrisy and violence against the innocent. I’m thinking especially of “Catalog of Acceptable Violence,” a poem for Nicholas Hawkins who was murdered in Walker County, Alabama in 2016. How did you find your way into this poem, and what do you hope your readers gain from it? 

Hendrix: It really is a shame, isn’t it? And infuriating, because it doesn’t have to be this way. I think that anger and grief is what led me into this poem. As an aside, “Catalog of Acceptable Violence” is actually the poem that made me realize I was writing toward a collection—it was the first poem I wrote that explicitly blended these various violences. But to the point, the murder of Nicholas Hawkins hit me especially hard for a couple reasons. The first was the proximity to home: my dad’s family is from Walker County, and I have a lot of fond memories there. The second and larger reason has to do with biphobia and misconceptions of bisexuality. There’s this pervasive notion—even in queer spaces—that bisexuality is performative; it’s what you say you are before eventually coming “all the way” out, or it’s for attention. And I think that leads to the belief that bisexual people aren’t targets of anti-queer hatred because sometimes our relationships “pass” for straight. When Hawkins was murdered, I was “out” to only a handful of people, but it shook me up so badly I came out publicly a month later. That’s where the poem was born, too: navigating the fact that my straight-passing relationship wouldn’t save me—Nicholas Hawkins liked girls, too, and it wasn’t enough to save him; coping with the knowledge that our bodies were little more than trophies of violence in a culture that makes trophies of violence. 

Walker: Your book recently won the Weatherford Award for Best Appalachian Poetry, a cause for celebration! Ansel Elkins, who won the Yale Younger Poets Prize in 2015, stated that “[t]he hunger in this book is unstoppable.” I agree, and I think it’s your courage to cut trails for others, to express inexpressible feelings and impressions through your poetry, that makes you stand out. What does it mean for you to win this prize? 

Hendrix: Oh wow, this is so generous of you—thank you! I really appreciate it. On a sort of baseline level, it’s always nice to win things, but I’ll admit the Weatherford feels especially significant to me for a few reasons. On one level, it’s sponsored in part by Berea College, which is my late grandmother Dusti’s alma mater, so that’s very cool. But bigger than that, it’s validating. People don’t really think of Alabama as Appalachia, but it is—all the way down to Birmingham. The last foothill is in Auburn, and I’ve always thought of myself as distinctly Southern and distinctly Appalachian. I try not to get too caught up in identity labels, but this one feels important specifically because both Southern and Appalachian identity feel gatekept. So, to be recognized as Southern Appalachian feels really, again, validating. It’s special to get to have a foothold in these literary traditions, and I’m completely honored that people seem to think I deserve to be part of them. 

Walker: What’s next for the Southern, Appalachian poet Raye Hendrix? 

Hendrix: I’m admittedly shifting gears a bit and mostly focusing on revising my disability poetics dissertation, but I’m still writing poems! I’m hoping to start weaving these primary-focus identities for me—queerness, Southern-Appalachian-ness, and disability and neurodivergence—into the poetry I’m writing too, not just the poems I’m writing about. I think I like the idea of writing cripqueer poetry in a distinctly Southern context. It’s something I’m really excited to dig into more and see where it takes me. I think I’m going to learn a lot, which is ultimately my favorite thing to do. 

Jason Gordy Walker is a poet, prose writer, and translator who lives in Alabama. His reviews and interviews have appeared or are forthcoming in Asymptote, Birmingham Poetry Review, Poetry Northwest, and elsewhere. He has received support from the New York State Summer Writers Institute, Newnan Art Rez, and other institutions, and holds an MFA from the University of Florida.