Decoration Day

Saturday, February 21st, 11am at Barter's Smith Theatre

On Decoration Day in upper East Tennessee, Kate Hughes and her aunt, June Rankin, visit the Rankin family cemetery to clean the graves and remember their dead. As a girl, Kate and her mother, Cordie, moved away after her father, Boyd, was sent to prison. Boyd is haunted by a childhood accident that has split the Rankin and Hughes families. With Aunt June as her guide, Kate must come to her own understanding of her mother’s accident, her father’s involvement and sacrifice, her parents’ tumultuous relationship, and ultimately the meaning of family, home, and tradition. Just as they sidestep the graves of their ancestors, they must learn to navigate the unsettled and unsettling terrain of the here and now and move forward together.

Written by: Linda Parsons

Linda Parsons is the Poet Laureate of Knoxville, Tennessee. She is also the poetry editor for Madville Publishing and the copy editor for Chapter 16, the literary website of Humanities Tennessee. She is published widely, and her sixth collection is Valediction: Poems and Prose. Her plays have been produced by Flying Anvil Theatre, Maryville College, Tennessee Wesleyan University, and Western Carolina University. She is an eighth-generation Tennessean.