Bewildering Stories introduces and welcomes...

Kelli Simpson

Kelli lives with her family in Norman, Oklahoma. She has published poetry extensively and won first prize in the 2021 Super Highway Poetry Contest.

“In the Hometown of the Devil” is a folk ballad that will surely shock readers by its theme of bitter denunciation. But even those who put back of hand to brow in feigned horror will discover that the ballad’s refrain is imprinted in their mind and that their conscience begins to compose new stanzas on the same theme.

The poem is deceptively simple. The three stanzas only appear to be unrelated; rather, they challenge the reader to deduce what might link them in a coherent short story. Finally, the end of the refrain, “this place that God forgot” is a sly attempt at blame-shifting; no deity forgets anything. Who, then, really does the forgetting in “the hometown of the devil”?

Kelli Simpson’s bio sketch can be found here.

Welcome to Bewildering Stories, Kelli. We hope to hear from you again soon and often!