Po' Monkey's: Portrait of a Juke Joint

Winner of the 2020 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award for Photography

Outside of Merigold, Mississippi, off an unmarked dirt road, stands Po’ Monkey’s, perhaps the most famous house in Mississippi and the last rural juke joint in the state, now closed to the public. Before the death of the lounge’s owner, Willie Seaberry, in 2016, it was a mandatory stop on the constant blues pilgrimage that flows through the Delta.

Seaberry ran Po’ Monkey’s Lounge for more than fifty years, ope...