Author and prose writer Marcia Hawley Barnes and author and poet Janice Townley Moore to read at John C. Campbell Folk School's Literary hour, Thursday, April 20, 2017

On Thursday, April 20, 2017  at 7:00 PM, the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC, and NC Writers Network- West are sponsoring The Literary Hour, an hour of poetry and prose reading held at Keith House on the JCFS campus. This event is normally held the third Thursday of the month unless otherwise notified.  The reading is free of charge and open to the public. Poets and writers Janice Townley Moore and Marcia Hawley Barnes will be the featured readers. Both of these writers are widely published and their readings are always events that entertain.

Janice Townley Moore

Janice Townley Moore, Professor Emeritus of English at Young Harris College, published a chapbook, Teaching the Robins, with Finishing Line Press in 2005. Her poems have appeared in Georgia Review, Prairie Schooner, Southern Poetry Review, Connecticut Review, Journal of the American Medical Association, and in many anthologies. Her latest poem was published in Coming Off the Line: The Car in American Culture, published by Main Street Rag. An active member of the North Carolina Writers’ Network, she is coordinator for the poetry critique group which meets at Tri-County Community College.

Marcia Hawley Barnes

Marcia Hawley Barnes,is a Georgia writer and poet. She is a member of the North Carolina Writers’ Network, NetWest, and Ridgeline Literary Alliance. Ms. Barnes celebrated the American family and cuisine in 2008, when she researched, illustrated, and published The Little Book of Secret Family Recipes. A heritage cookbook, the collection contains favorite recipes found in the archives of her family. In 2016, her first children’s book, Tobijah, illustrated by Doreyl Ammons Cain, was published by Catch the Spirit of Appalachia.  The book was nominated for the Georgia Author of the Year Award in 2017. Her poetry has been published in Stone, River, Sky, An Anthology of Georgia Poems. The author also writes a monthly book review for a local newspaper, Clay County Progress

PURTY COWS

I had never thought I had an affinity for cows. I grew up on a farm and cows were part of the landscape -- in green pastures in summer, in brown pastures in fall and sometimes in icy, even snowy pastures in winter. Cows standing belly-deep in cool ponds on hot days and cows with icicles hanging off their noses in winter.

Cows come in many colors. Long ago my father had a beige Jersey cow. Babe had large brown eyes. I liked to press my face against her warm hide and breathe in her scent.

On our farm were black cows, red and white cows and some black and white cows. The typical black and white cow we see on television urging us to 'Eat More Chickin' is a Holstein. During my teenage years, black and white Holstein dairy cattle spotted our pastures. I never thought they were pretty as the Jersey, Guernsey, Black Angus, and Herefords.

A couple of years ago, while riding through a particularly picturesque area, my husband said, "You really like cows, don't you?"

"I never thought about it. I don't think I really like cows. Why do you say that?"

"Because, every time we pass a herd of cows, you say 'purty cows'." He laughed. "I think you really like cows."

That got me to thinking, and I realize that I do, indeed, like cows. Recently on a fantastic fall afternoon driving east on Hwy 64 from Murphy, NC to Hayesville, as the sun slid toward the mountain tops in the west, it cast a glow over everything in front of me. I wanted to stop right there, in the middle of the road, and capture the scene of the hills, the cows and the blue mountains in the background. Of course, I couldn't do that. Highway 64 is one busy road, so I did the next best thing. I turned off, found a spot, and made a few photos. That was when I remembered Janice Moore's poem about cows. She grew up in the city, and I enjoy this poem in which she is first introduced to cows living near.