Monique Bell writes Dr. Monique Bell is a marketing professor at California State University, Fresno, where she teaches wine marketing and promotions courses. She presents her groundbreaking research on inclusion and social sustainability, including Terroir Noir: Study of Black Wine Entrepreneurs, on stages from Santa Rosa to Stellenbosch. Dr. Bell is a Wine Enthusiast Social Visionary nominee, a Professional Wine Writers’ Symposium fellow and panelist, and Institute of Masters of Wine Symposium presenter, among other achievements. Dr. Bell is WSET Level 2 certified with distinction and, through Wyne Belle, she partners with wine consumers and businesses in reaching their customized perfect finish.
Daughter of Scuppanon’
A poem for the official – as well as the human – fruit of North Carolina
What can vanquish a King?
Crush his frothy bloom of subjugation
Bound for eastern shores
Not foul-lipped tobacco, nor festive pines
Not sleeping tubers, nor penitent legumes
Our muscadine conqueror sits heavy
stealthy on the vines.
Sweet Scuppernong!
The first to be tamed in a lawless wild
Land without borders, a terrain
Less united today.
Yet the strength of your skin
A fortitude unrivaled
Resilient, like us.
A salve for King Cotton’s subjects.
Spirited Scuppanon’!
Conjure, hoo doo, witchcraft, obeah:
Julius’s goophered grape sires
Dreams, desires, destitution
Great grand-daddy
Planted in North ‘Cackalacky’
Pecan brown, cotton white hair
Sips your potion born
Under “freedom’s” new sky.
A salve for Jim Crow’s survivors.
Sagacious Scupnon’!
Son of the South, child of the Mother Vine
Whose history will you tell?
Whose truth will ripen in your flesh?
Will you be a mockingbird? Or,
Sing your own song?
No kings, no emperors, no Julius Caesar.
Instead: Chestnutt, Horton and Angelou
A laurel crown for Floyd’s witnesses.
Who can vanquish a King?
Burn his suffocating fog
Bound for tender ears and broken hearts
Not foul-lipped tobacco, nor festive pines
Not sleeping tubers, nor penitent legumes
I and our muscadine conqueror sit heavy
stealthy on the vines.
The photo is of Scuppernong grapes in North Carolina, taken by Julian Leidy.
