If you look for the word, “Kakalak,” in most standard dictionaries, you probably won’t find it.  If you Google it, you’ll find that it’s a colloquial Turkish term for cockroach, and similar words in Germanic and Scandinavian languages have the same connotation.

Of course, around here we like to call the American version of that arthropod a Palmetto Bug or a Water Bug, and we think it’s pretty important that our more laid back and less invasive variety comes from an entirely different zoological order, Periplaneta, than the more infamous and encroaching German species, Blatella germanica.

You might also find a listing in the Urban Dictionary that says it is “an endearment of the Carolinas [similar to Cackalacky]. . . which conveys a willingness to laugh at oneself and one’s origins while still remaining proud and affectionate towards them,” not unlike how many of us feel about certain members of our family of origin.

If you’re a poet, the word has taken on quite another meaning over the last two decades.  It is the title of an exciting annual anthology of mostly North and South Carolina poets and visual artists, though submissions are accepted from all over. Published by Moonshine Review Press out of Harrisburg, NC, this year’s Kakalak was put together by editors Anne Kaylor, Kim Blum-Hyclak, Julie Ann Cook, and Angelo Geter.

The 2025 issue of Kakalak came out around the turn of the year, and the 208-page anthology features works by a wide range of impressive writers and artists from across the two states, as well as a few from beyond our borders.

If you’re a regular at Poetry Hickory, many of the names you’ll find in Kakalak will sound familiar, as they have been featured writers at our monthly gatherings, including Steve Cushman, Les Brown, Joan Barasovska, Richard Allen Taylor, and Michael Gaspeny, among others.

Kakalak’s poems and art are selected from entries in the anthology’s annual contests, which accept submissions in the months of March and April.

The Hickory area has a long history of success in these contests, and this year was no different, as Hickory area poets Lily Oetting, Maeve Fox, Narya Deckard, and Scott Owens, and Valdese artist Brenda Lyday all had work accepted from the 800 poems and 200 pieces of art submitted for inclusion in the anthology.

The anthology is available for purchase for $21 through Kakalak’s website at www.kakalakanthology.com (more details about the publication and annual contests can be found there as well), but Hickory area residents will be able to purchase it firsthand at the March 10 Poetry Hickory, to be held at Taste Full Beans Coffeehouse at 6:15. Poetry Hickory that night will feature an as-yet-to-be-determined number of writers from this year’s anthology, but Owens, Fox, Deckard, and Gary Powell have all already indicated they will read.

To whet your appetite for that reading, here is the poem by Maeve Fox, one of our locals, chosen to be included in Kakalak. Maeve is a regular at Poetry Hickory, so if you come to the reading on March 10, you’ll get to hear this one in her own voice.

Molasses Melodies

When I hear a sweet Southern drawl,

I feel that slight twinge of shame.

My heart pines for the ease of

slow molasses on my tongue.

There’s a taste of it, way down.

Like a valley crick tumbling through

shady woods, full of oaks and hickory.

I yearn for smooth vowels in words

shaped by hills in the distance.

Rolling over and over to enjoy

the way sounds feel in my mouth.

Without knowing it, I sold my heritage,

plum ruint my Southern soul

with every g added onto

fixin’, fishin’, fussin’, and fightin’.

Turned all my cain’ts to can’ts.

Traded my Piedmont roots,

so people didn’t have to taste

the red clay in my words.