Torli Bush’s “JD” Selected for Pushcart Prize

Pulley is so excited to announce that Torli Bush’s poem “JD” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and will be published in Pushcart Prize L (2026 Edition) on December 2nd of this year. 

“JD” is, according to Bush, “an open letter to J.D. Vance” written in the aftermath of Vance’s 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy. 

“Where were people like me in that white monolith you wrote, JD?” Bush asks, and this poem is an answer to that question. It pulls at the hanging threads of Vance’s picture of Appalachia in a way that is both scathing and sincere, and through the holes that remain are the people, realities, and complications of Bush’s life and experience in West Virginia. 

“JD” is part of Bush’s debut collection Requiem for a Redbird, which, among other accolades, was shortlisted for the Writers Conference of Northern Appalachia’s Book of the Year.

Huge congratulations to Torli on another well deserved recognition!

JD,

In some ways, our stories are alike. I was also raised by my white grandparents in Webster Springs, West Virginia, from the time I was seven years old. I'm black. Before your mind trails off too far: dad's white, mom's black, she died in the after of childbirth, brain aneurysm from having sickle cell anemia. Dad was in the Navy at the time, going with his parents was eventually the best option. I had a good life, I can admit that. I had some kind of anomalous privilege of growing up well off cause James Lee Bush, Sr., my grandfather, worked and retired from coal mining. I wanted to believe that your book wasn't that bad, that it was a feel good story that got misconstrued; I'm sorry no editor checked your ego at the door. If you would've stuck to memoir, the worst would've been you outing your grandmother as crazy enough to cap a man with a six-shooter; even that would've been too much cause everybody who's anybody who's Appalachian knows you don't paint your grandmother like that, JD. Like "hillbilly" was the only word that could define her; like she wasn't a "homemaker," like my grandmother, keeping you fed and clothed and getting the sense of needing an education into you. 

You couldn't even bring yourself to admit what good you had, how it advantaged you. Even being black and out of place, I can see what I had. I saw my classmates too. Here's some people I graduated with: Tyler Neal didn't come from much but started his own timbering business and has a family, doing well for himself. Cassandra Clevenger lost her mom as a young woman; she's a pharmacist now. Aerial Lake had her house burn down our senior year; she pushed and pushed and did her undergrad in three years and became a physical therapist. Cameron Clutter became a barber, and can play a mean electric guitar. Samuel Canfield, a biologist, trying to help the changing environment. There's so many others in my class who went into a trade or healthcare or just outright working, we ain't fucking lazy.

I was the only black kid in my grade for most of my time up until highschool but I know that I ain't the only black person in the whole of Appalachia; where were people like me in that white monolith you wrote, JD? Tucked behind your ranting & raving on "welfare queens?" You just gonna pretend like we don't exist? Like we're all just rustbelt ghosts and magnolia tree ornaments? You ain't been to the core of Appalachia where the wild magic is: the hollars know every skin tone, it's kinda Christian, kinda queer, kinda folk, kinda soul food and moonshine; it’s perfect dirt, fishing, hunting, and playing basketball into the nighttime til we bond around bonfires. There’s an empty wicker chair and a mason jar with your name on it; come find me, learn who we really are.