Mississippi Native: A. H. Jerriod Avant

"Everything I need I have and is here: family, a house, land, a job, and a community."

What does it mean to call Mississippi home? Why do people choose to leave or live in this weird, wonderful, and sometimes infuriating place? Today we hear from poet A. H. Jerriod Avant, who left Mississippi to pursue a career in creative writing before returning to his hometown last year. His debut poetry collection, Muscadine, was published in the fall.

Featured contributor A. H. Jerriod Avant moved back to Mississippi in 2023.

Where are you from?

Longtown, MS sits in the northwest corner of the state, in Panola County.

When did you move back to Mississippi and why did you return?

I was born and raised here, spent the first twenty-three years of my life here before moving away in 2008. Since 2008 I’ve spent nearly each summer here in Longtown before finally moving back (for good I hope) June 3, 2023. I moved back to chase jobs that might allow me to live at home comfortably.   

What does “home” mean to you? How does Mississippi fit into that definition?

Home, above all, is a level of peace and ease I feel around me in a place. Most times this has to do with the people that make up my community in a place. It’s definitely that way in Panola County. Family and friends make that place home along with the landscape and natural life native to the place. The kudzu, muscadines, pines, pecans, Aunt Shirley’s pound cake, the blues, and smoked meats.

Jerriod’s mother with her sister, his Aunt Shirley. Photo by A. H. Jerriod Avant.

What did you miss most about Mississippi?

I missed my family the most. We’ve lost a lot of family since 2008 and it makes things a bit different being back here now that so many are gone. I also missed the pace of life that living in the Deep South grants us. I feel I have time to think and write and go about things in a leisurely way. 

How have you cultivated community? Do you still feel rooted to Mississippi?

I’ve been back in Longtown for seven months now and have felt rooted since I’ve been back. Rooted in the soil, the home, the church, and with family. Cultivating a literary community has me reaching between Jackson, MS, and Oxford, MS. And while it will take time and energy to tend to either consistently, I think once my job starts in Oxford I’ll have a greater sense of what a cultivated work/social/literary community can look like. 

Whether it be language, food, music or the pace of things, the Mississippi in me tends to supersede my expressions and ways of going about my days when I’ve lived elsewhere.