MISSISSIPPI is a collection of 77 poems from James A. Autry's Nights Under A Tin Roof and Life After Mississippi. The author, a former U.S. Air Force pilot, newspaper reporter, national magazine editor and Fortune 500 executive, returns to his Mississippi roots to examine the forces which shaped him. Autry's narrative verse focuses on the rhythms of rural southern life, an odyssey of country funerals, weddings, church revivals, family reunions, and courtships drawn from a unique American heritage....The landscape of Autry's memories is familiar to anyone who has heard the voice of the whippoorwill or the baying of hounds in the night or who has savored the smell of fresh-turned earth.(The Atlanta Journal) Autry writes of farm life, of revival meetings and teenage romance, of weddings and reunions and funerals, in vivid, sensuous detail. His sure hand moves with gentleness through his material. (The Richmond News Leader)