FAVORITE APPALACHIAN BOOKS

THANKS SO MUCH TO THOSE OF YOU WHO RESPONDED TO THIS BLOG REQUEST! BECAUSE IT'S EASTER WEEKEND AND PEOPLE HAVE BEEN AND WILL BE BUSY, I'M GOING TO LEAVE THE GATE OPEN FOR MORE SUCH POSTS, AND THEN, WITH NANCY AND GLENDA, CHOOSE THE ONES WE WILL HONOR WITH AN APPALACHIAN BOOK AS REWARD.

HAVE A LOVELY AND LOVING EASTER WEEKEND.

Favorite Appalachian Book: FAIR AND TENDER LADIES

Fair and Tender Ladies by Lee Smith is my favorite mountain novel. I first read this novel in college when I was about 20 years old. The protagonist, Ivy, was like a heavy pebble dropped in my soul, one that resonated with me. I'm from Claiborne County in east TN and grew up with many wonderful women. There is strength, sadness, and dignity wrapped into one in each of these women. Ivy embodied this is in a way that made realize the archetype of the simple and “uneducated” mountain woman. I do believe that the memories of our ancestors, both recent and long ago, are stored in our cells. Although I was only 20 years old, I held the grief of losing babies, slaughtering hogs, and chopping tobacco in my DNA.

My favorite scene from Fair and Tender Ladies is when Ivy sits on the porch of her home high on the mountain. She looks down to her community below that just received electricity. She sees all the homes alight for the first time. I imagine many times she has looked below her and seen only the blackness of oak and maple in the night. That night, however, she looked down and was reminded that there were people there. There were families there. Even now as I think on that scene, I feel something bittersweet. There is a comfort in knowing you are not alone, yet a heavy sadness in watching the changing of time. There are changes that come and we either accept them peaceably or we struggle and create pain for ourselves. In that moment I believe Ivy was able to hold the immense experiences of her life, all the pains and joys, and own them. Without judgment she accepted lovingly the course of her life. Every light inside Ivy was on, and she was okay with that. This was a woman who had known suffering and ecstasy and was able to regard them all as hers in that moment. Even at 20 years old, being the daughter of mountain women, I could feel that and know it at a deeper level today.

There are so many great mountain novels, but also at the top of the list would be Gap Creek by Robert Morgan. In both of these novels, it's the female protagonist that reaches me. In Gap Creek, it's Julie Harmon. Julie is tough, strong, and stoic. She does what needs to be done, forges ahead, and keeps her mouth shut. So many times throughout the course of this novel, I vary between wanting to comfort this poor child and desiring to shake her silly. But Julie, too, is an archetype that resonates in me. She is the mountain woman that quietly endures pain at the expense of her very self. She does the work of a man, all the while secretly aching to just be a woman. Having the core of your femininity torn severely alters a woman's ability to be with other people, particularly with men, and we see this again and again with Julie. Reading Julie's story walked me through the process of dying and being re-born. It was cathartic and therapeutic, because we all have had moments when we give parts of our self away to others. Essentially, we have many deaths of our self's potential. Likewise, we always have opportunities to be the hero in our own story and get it right. This is the way of all humans, particularly the women of Appalachia.

The memories of mountain women in my cells and marrow sing “Hallelujah!” for Ivy and Julie. The novels of these hills will always be able to do that for me, and so I’ll return to them again and again.

Melissa T. Greene, MA, LPC-MHSP
Coordinator, Intensive In-Home Treatment
Centerstone
1921 Ransom Place
Nashville, TN 37217
(615) 460-4415

melissa.greene@centerstone.org

FAVORITE APPALACHIAN BOOK: ANCESTERS AND OTHERS

FROM PENNY MORSE.

Gary Carden's review of the Pulitzer Prize winning classic by Caroline Miller, Lamb in His Bosom, is, indeed, a classic piece of fine writing. I'm always so grateful and proud that we have such an icon to teach us by example, to entertain and to keep alive the authenic voice of the mountains. Gary, may you live forever!

I am reading Fred Chappell's Ancestors and Others, published by St. Martin's Press in 2009. Most of the short stories in this book were previously published in earlier collections, but they are still fresh and captivating. Fred has that native son "ear" and the ability to lay out stories of mountain humor and deeds in pitch perfect dialect. The mountain based stories are not necessarily all humorous such as in Tradition, a tale of 6 deer hunters and one of them is slightly unhinged. Spine-tingling is how you feel as you follow one hunter who may be stalked by another.

No dialect was needed for Ladies from Lapland, about the adventures of de Marpertuis as he set out with a group of explorers to measure the earth at the north pole. He became infatuated with Inuit maidens encountered in what was then called Lapland. Much distracted from his mission, and to the disgust of his fellow scientitsts, Marpertuis dallies with the ladies and then insists they return to France with him. The closer they come to Europe, the less attractive he finds these sweet and naive women. But what is he to do with them? Ladies from Lapland shows Fred's mastery of linguistics. It remains a charming story, told with a flair for the language of an era when wealthy French aristocrats could be as eccentric and arrogant as they wanted.

I found all of the tales in this collection to be of substance and fine examples of the art of short story writing. It's no wonder many of Fred Chappell's students have gone on to success, such as Robert Morgan. My favorite from this collection is Moments of Light about the soul-shattering experience the composer Haydn has as he first views the heavens through a telescope. Very lyrical language here, so beautifully written that the reader becomes breathless in those heart-stopping moments of Haydn's discovery. Don't miss the clever and funny Christmas story, Creche. If you could overhear the animals talking at Midnight on Christmas eve, what would they say? Fred knows these magical things and spins a wonderful tale complete with a drunken pig who has fed on leftover fermented mash. Ancesters and Others
is a well-balanced collection showcasing the work of a master writer over many years. Fred, I guess you'll just have to live forever also!

Penny Morse

Favorite APPALACHIAN BOOK: WHEN THE SAP RISES

FROM CAROLE R. THOMPSON

When images of people become real, and speak clearly to me from the poet's words, I feel connected to the writer in a unique way. "Yes!", I want to say; "That is the way it is, isn't it?" Glenda Barrett has written truthfully about the joys and sorrows of her life in Southern Appalachia. "When the Sap Rises" is a collection of her powerful poetry. In her honest and simple way, Glenda can bring you to tears, or make you smile. You feel her deep love for her family, and for the land where she put down deep roots. It is a small book, with huge rewards for the soul. Carole R. Thompson

My BIO

Carole Richard Thompson has been a member of the NCWN for over 10 years. She writes poetry and short stories, a number of which have been published. She and her husband, Norman, retired and moved to Blairsville, GA 20 years ago. She has taken several writing classes from Nancy Simpson Brantley, and hopes to take many more!

FaVORITE APPALACHIAN NOVEL: The Silence of Snakes

The following arrived this morning from Bill Everett. Thanks a lot, Bill. It's good to be reminded of Lewis Green's work.

--William Everett

I was awakened to the peculiar depth of Appalachian writing by Lewis Green’s The Silence of Snakes (1984). We were building our home on the slopes of Wolf Pen Mountain, near Waynesville, when an old friend recommended that I read a tale set where we had decided to live. The Silence of Snakes is the tragic story of a traumatized World War I hero, Earl Skiller, whose sufferings lead him to a series of gruesome murders in which the line between military heroism and depraved criminality disappears, exposing the two-edged sword of civilized “order.”

Through Green’s story I could see the life deep within these rocks and trees. I met the rattlesnakes that symbolize for Earl Skiller the secret depth of his life. As he told his fellow soldiers, “…I could turn into a rattlesnake in my mind, and then I could come and go and do my damage and nobody watched. I learned a big lesson once from rattlesnakes. … They’re silent in spite of the rattles. They’re silent at the right time. They can do a lot of damage. If they’re silent and it’s dark, then who can see ‘em?”

And I felt the ragged edge of mountain humor. Hear these lines between the discoverer of one of Skiller’s victims and the local physician. “We need fer ye to come and announce somebody dead. Some son-of-a bitch killed Mitchell Sanger. They cut his head off.” “Is that a fact? he finally asked. “Cut his head off?” “Yes sir.” “Well, I don’t have to go up there. I can tell you from here that he’s dead.”

Because of this book, the power to speak of place and of the crushing conflicts out of which humanity is hewed have remained the hallmarks of the writing in these hills.

------------------------

William Everett retired from 35 years of teaching ethics in order to write and make furniture in Waynesville, NC. He is the author of Red Clay, Blood River (2008) and numerous poems, the most recent appearing in Fresh. He blogs at www.WilliamEverett.com.

NETWEST MEMBER SUSAN SNOWDWN RECEIVES HONORABLE MENTION

CONGRATULATIONS TO SUSAN!

Susan Snowden, a Netwest member in Hendersonville, received honorable mention in the Doris Betts Fiction Award contest sponsored by the North Carolina Writers’ Network and the North Carolina Literary Review. According to the news release posted this week on NCLR’s website, eighty-two (82) writers submitted stories to the contest, from which ten finalists were selected. From those ten, NCLR fiction editor Liza Wieland selected one winning story (by Robert Wallace of Durham) and noted two others for honorable mention (Susan Snowden and Wayne Johns).

Only the first place story will be published in the NCLR in 2011, so Susan hopes to find another “home” for her story, “Revenge.”

(For details about the award, visit www.nclr.ecu.edu/news/2010.)

READING HALF THE DAY OR HALF THE NIGHT - Favorites

Dear Fellow Writers, Kathryn Stripling Byer's call for us to declare our favorite book of the mountains is a good thing. I didn't at first even know there would be so few and didn't know that I was also not simply being asked to judge, but to declare my favorite. Well, first I'm shocked there are not hundreds of essays here. Gary Carden's favorite Appalachian novel essay is well written. It makes me want to get the book if it can be found.

I'm the READING-HAlF-THE-DAY-OR-HALF-THE-NIGHT woman, although I've never been a reviewer and couldn't be if I tried. I did pass the MFA program by taking a lot of Tagamet to get through the writing of the-degree-year essay. But books. You can't stop me from reading. I read. The book I just frinished this morning is THE SONG OF SOLOMON, (for the 2nd time in my life) written by Toni Morrison. It's one of the best books ever written. My cat was so happy he said "Meow" when I held the book up and he saw me take it off the bed to put back on the bookshelf because it had fallen on his head so many times this week.

Okay, down to business. I will declare:

There has been a lot of good poetry written here in the mountains in the past few years, but if I have to say, I have no trouble saying: In her book When the Sap Rises, Glends Barrett gives us the most authentic voice to rise out of the southern mountains in years. Whether she is eating an apple with a knife or if she is knee deep, fishing in Owl Creek, here is a woman who is as immersed in her environment as in her daily existnce. Barrett's concerns for family and heritage go beyond what happened, for her poems celebrate life, transcend sorrow, and show the reader what was learned. Available at Amazon.com and Finishing Line Press, 2008) .

My favorite novel set in the mountains in recent years is Charles Frazier's thirteen moons,

(2006, Random House) It was a joy to live the life of young Will Cooper from age 12 to the

end. I know, it's fiction. I know Frazier wrote in the back of the book how "Will Cooper is not

William Holland Thomas, though they do share some DNA." I know Frazier emphasized that Charley is not Tsali. Bla, bla. I knew the "history" before I read the book. I knew the story. I lived and breathed thirteen moons. For me, thirteen moons was a better book than Cold Mountain, for which the author received the National Book Award, but I did not succeed in getting anyone who would agree with me nor even disucss thirteen moons.

My favorite children's book from the mountains is MOUNTAIN WEDDING by Faye Gibbons. I want to know who ever has my copy to bring it back now. Gibbons was born in Carter's Quarter in the north Georgia mountains in 1938 and has authored 13 published books.

http://fayegibbons.com/

http://www.amazon.com/Mountain-Wedding-Faye-Gibbons/dp/1590783247

FAVORITE APPALACHIAN NOVEL: LAMB IN HIS BOSOM

Gary Carden had a hard time getting the Netwest blog to accept his submission for "favorite Appalachian novel," so gave up, figuring we'd have "a bunch" anyway. This morning he sent this to me after learning that we didn't receive any favorite novel posts. I was interested to hear that Caroline Miller was born in Waycross, Ga. My family hailed from the other side of the state, near Albany, and I remember the Campbell family stories that had them migrating down from NC to Georgia, though the came from Randolph County, not one of our mountain counties. KB

---------------------

Belatedly, here is my selection for my favorite novel. I can edit it, if you wish, or you can edit it.

Gary Carden

PULITZER PRIZE WINNER CAPTURES BRUTALITY, BEAUTY OF APPALACHIA

One for the cutworm, one for the crow,

One to rot and one to grow.

- Corn-planting song in Lamb in His Bosom

All book lovers have an impressive list of books that they intend to read…eventually. Usually, this procrastination is due to some real or imagined challenge or difficulty that makes “literature” intimidating. Either the work is lengthy, or “intellectual,” or worst of all, it has been dubbed “a classic.” My list has always included War and Peace, Don Quixote and The Divine Comedy. Then, there is Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain, Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, and Caroline Miller’s Pulitzer Prize winner, Lamb in His Bosom. Well, being snow-bound in January gave me courage and I took on the latter.

The first surprise – pleasant – is Miller’s language. It sent me back 70 years to my childhood, and I found myself back in my grandparent’s home in Rhodes Cove with a shoe last under the bed, a metal spider in the fireplace and talk of “painters” and fireballs (both of which were rumored to come down chimneys). It was a world that was closely bound to the heavens, with crops planted by “the signs,” and where an overly active child sometimes “cut a dido” when he/she saw a “coach-whip snake in the woods or a green “measuring worm” (which measured unsuspecting folks for their coffins) on his/her sleeve. Boneset tea was brewed in the fireplace, guineas roosted in the trees and my grandmother caught May rainwater from the eaves of the house to ease the colic and clean a “gaumed up” stain from a dress. It is a world that either no longer exists, or has retreated to isolated coves in rural Georgia, western North Carolina or eastern Tennessee. That is both a blessing and a curse.

Lamb in His Bosom is an encyclopedia of Appalachian customs, dialect and folklore; it captures with a near-painful accuracy a way of living that was both harsh and beautiful. Consider the names in this novel: Sean, Lias, Bridger and Elizabeth; Jasper, Lovedy, Fairby, Margot and Derimad – names that bespeak the streets of Dublin, potato famines, brutal poverty and desperate migrations. Miller’s characters remember their origins. Despite the setting in south Georgia, the old folks still talk of cobbled streets in Galway and Limerick. However, Sean’s parents speak wistfully of “Old Carolina” where they lived briefly and which they came to perceive as a blissful Eden, before they followed the rumors (circa 1830’s) of cheap, rich land in Georgia. It was a move that they came to see as a tragic mistake. Sean’s mother continues to talk about “goin’ back to Caroliny” for the rest of her life.

The way of life lived (or endured) by Miller’s characters tends to be brutal, tragic and short. Women are considered

Old at 40, broken by childbearing and a sort of self-imposed slavery. Indeed some of the most dolorous passages in the novel are given to describing debilitated flesh. Adults, who prior to death, have been rendered mindless invalids, crippled by the hardships of farming. They slowly succumb while raving of hell or dreaming of a mother’s face and the voices of long-dead children. The planting rhyme at the beginning of this review could apply equally to the survival ratio of offspring. The ones who survive the rigors of life on a south Georgia farm in the 1840’s are few. Many die at birth and others are struck down by the vagaries/ hazards of farm life: pneumonia, fire and an amazing number of accidents and injuries that go untended except for the tenuous benefits of folk medicine. Among the awesome catalog of suffering in Lamb in His Bosom, this reviewer will never forget the description of two children who catch fire at an outdoor hog butchering and become two human torches, running through the winter wind. Then, there are the vital young men who are most prized of all family members – the seed-bearers and strong backs – the fair sons who survive only to perish at Fredericksburg or Appomattox in a war that they never understood.

However, the most enthralling aspects of this novel are Miller’s talent for capturing the mind and soul of her characters. The narrative slides effortlessly form objective to subjective description as the author slides into the minds of her characters, like a hand into a glove. She becomes Lias, the prodigal son, vain and arrogant; Bridget the exotic “woman from the coast” who becomes a mainstay in the lives of the Carver family; plodding Lonzo, tongue-tied and awkward behind his oxen, dreaming of thoroughbred horses; and Sean, the shy and obedient wife who sometimes “sulls” behind her spinning wheel, dwelling on God’s harshness.

Miller is concerned with the souls of these people who are in turn, frail, shy, stubborn and willful. How do they perceive the world? God? Sexuality? The purpose of their lives? I find Miller’s conclusions compatible with those of my own grandparents in Rhodes Cove. Life is harsh and the only response to it is forbearance and stoic acceptance. Death is “the dark doorway” that is always near, perhaps in the next room. Mankind is frail, weak, and carnal, and probably deserves all the attending suffering that God sends. We are here to fulfill a purpose for the Almighty, but we usually fail. We must try again.

Both men and women are helpless in the grasp of sexuality, and love comes like a fatal sickness or a sudden storm that wrecks families, alienates friends and blights lives. That can’t be helped. Let us get up and go on.

Miller’s protagonist, Sean, perceives herself, her family, her animals and all mankind as “fertilizer.” We will enrich the soil and create a new life. For Sean, that is our earthly immortality. The earth will go on, serenely indifferent to these temporal life forms that struggle, sing briefly, lament loudly and sink into the soil to make the magnolia trees and new corn flourish. For Sean, she and all her kin are like a shout in a great darkness, gone before the echo fades. In the great scheme of things, we are of little consequence. The sun shall rise and not see us again.

Like most people in this region, I know that Caroline Miller lived in Waynesville until her death in 1992. I did not know that she was born in Waycross, Georgia (1904), and lived for over 30 years in Baxley where she did meticulous research for this novel. Frequently pretending to be looking for eggs and butter, she interviewed numerous farm families who were living in rural isolation. Perhaps her greatest gift is for language – the ability to capture the nuances of dialect that retain the music of Ireland: the love of stories filled with travail, heartbreak and grandeur. Yet, in spite of it all, running through this chronicle of the life of Sean Smith Carver O’Conner, there is a dark joy. The language is frequently lyric and I am tempted to quote passages that ring with a rueful beauty. Perhaps, one paragraph? This is the death of Lias, the prodigal son, in California. He has just mailed a letter, assuring his mother and sister that he is on his way home. Like the ill-advised and belatedly delivered letters in a Thomas Hardy novel, this one is destined to cause untold misery. Lias knows he is dying, but he sends the letter anyway. “I want them to always think that I am coming,” he says.

Sundown was not far off; in the smooth bulging distance, the sun eased himself into the ocean to quench the boiling flame that studs his breast. Shaking water crumpled the gold pavement of the sunset. Lias ceased his praying, for suddenly, the compelling hunger in his breast no longer tortured him. Above his head, he heard the sound of a woman’s soft weeping, and the sound was like the sound of an outgoing tide’s little waves that caress the sands monotonously, sibilant, and as precious as tears.”

Dear reader, read this book. If possible, read it slowly.

FAVORITE BOOK PROMPT WENT BUST

I'm really disappointed that none of our members responded to "My Favorite Appalachian Book" prompt. We could have had a good time with this, discussing the books we like with each other. I was looking forward to reading Netwest posts on this topic. My short piece on Lee Smith's Fair and Tender Ladies back in February was rewarding to write, and Lee loved it, too. Winning a splendid novel by Manette Ansay wasn't bad either! I'd hoped other Netwest writers might have a similar experience writing about a book they loved.

We are trying to generate more blog traffic, turning the site into a real meeting place for writers, as well as a source of information for Netwest writers. I may try this approach one more time, but for now, it seems there's no interest. Maybe the winter was just too miserable. Maybe Spring will re-energize us!

We did have one respondent who took a different theme for post, and to thank him, I will be sending an Appalachian book (I'll give him a few choices...) from City Lights Books to him.

Don't Open Writerlady e-mail until further notice

Alert! Alert!
Please be aware that an email is circulating from writerlady21@yahoo.com with my name, Glenda Beall, in the from line, soliciting money from the recepient. The email says I'm in England and need a loan.
Please don't open this email and if you do, don't believe a word of it.
I am so sorry, but it seems a hacker has stolen my yahoo ID and my entire email file is gone. All messages I had received and stored are gone.

If I had your email address in my Yahoo Account, your email has been compromised. I am so sorry this happened, and I am so embarrassed that my name has been used in this manner.

I am doing all I can to get to the bottom of this. Let me know if you responded and what you received in reply.
I am not in England and I am not needing or asking for a loan. I don't even know anyone in England.

Be aware of strange sounding e-mails.
Glenda Beall

NC ENGLISH TEACHERS ASSOCIATION WRITING AWARDS FOR STUDENTS

(Photo by Kathryn Byer)

THE DEADLINE FOR NCETA'S STUDENT WRITING AWARDS IS APRIL 15. PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD TO THE MIDDLE AND HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS YOU KNOW. THE WADE EDWARDS FICTION CONTEST GIVES THE TOP 3 WINNERS VERY GENEROUS AWARD MONEY. THE ESSAY AND POETRY CONTESTS GIVE $250 FIRST PLACE AWARDS. LAST YEAR WE HAD NO STUDENTS SUBMITTING WORK FROM OUR FAR WESTERN COUNTIES, SO PLEASE ENCOURAGE TEACHERS TO ANNOUNCE THESE AWARDS AND ENCOURAGE ANY STUDENTS YOU KNOW TO ASK THEIR TEACHERS TO SPONSOR STUDENT WORK FROM THEIR SCHOOLS. IT'S IMPORTANT FOR OUR YOUNG PEOPLE TO SEE THAT GOOD WRITING IS REWARDED AND CONSIDERED IMPORTANT BY OUR STATE'S OFFICIAL ENGLISH TEACHER'S ORGANIZATION. THE LINK TO THE AWARDS INFORMATION IS BELOW.

http://ncenglishteacher.org/writingcompetitions.htm

CANDY MAIER SCHOLARSHIP FUND BOOK FAIR

WHAT: A BOOK FAIR FOR SELF-PUBLISHED WRITERS OF THE AREA

WHERE: KENILWORTH PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, ASHEVILLE

WHEN: SATURDAY, MAY 15, 2010—FROM 10:00 until 4:00
BRING YOUR OWN BOOKS (BYOBOOKS)
NO BOOKSTORE INVOLVED—YOU HANDLE YOUR OWN SALES

PLUS

A USED BOOK TABLE (donations appreciated)

A TABLE OF DISCOUNT BOOKS (one book from each attending author)

SILENT AUCTION AND RAFFLE

HOMEMADE GOODIES

HANDMADE JEWELRY AND CARDS

LOCAL PUBLISHERS


SPONSORED BY THE CANDY MAIER SCHOLARSHIP FUND FOR WOMEN WRITERS

Website: http://www.thecandyfund.org/
Contact Celia Miles for more information: Celia Miles

A $10.00 participation fee is required.

FOR POETS AND THOSE WHO LOVE TO READ POEMS

SATURDAY, MARCH 20, 2010

MESSAGE FOR POETS AND THOSE WHO LOVE TO READ POETRY BY SOUTHERN AND APPALACHIAN POETS

Hello Felow Poets and Friends of Poetry,

Living Above the Frost Line is a site that promotes poetry, especially poems written by Southern and Appalachian poets. Some poets featured in the past (found in the archive still) are Kathryn Stripling Byer, Bettie M. Sellers, John Stone, Janice Townley Moore, Glenda Barrett, Glenda Beall, and many others.

Ruth Moose of Chappel Hill, NC is the featured poet for the month of March, 2010.

Brenda Kay Ledford will be the featured poet in her birth month--April, 2010.

The featured poet is chosen by Nancy Simpson. Most of the poets featured are members of N C Writers Network West, have a book or books published and currently have a book for sale. They may be featured at any time, but birth month is preferred. It is not too soon or too late to have a few of your poems featured with a photo and a short bio. Short stories and memoir chapters are also sometimes reprinted, such as in the recently featured work of Dana Wildsmith.

To have your poetry featured and your book announced, please contact poet Nancy Simpson at

LIVING ABOVE THE FROST LINE. www.nancysimpson.blogspot.com or through e mail

communicaton nancy.simpson38@yahoo.com

REMEMBERING RIGHTLY, by William Everett

( Photograph by Louanne Watley)

William Everett retired from 35 years of teaching ethics in order to write and make furniture in Waynesville, NC. He is the author of Red Clay, Blood River (2008) and numerous poems, the most recent appearing in Fresh. He blogs at www.WilliamEverett.com.
Remembering Rightly

I have been salvaging our old photographs by digitizing them for future generations. In my efforts I have been brought back to the ways we try to organize our lives between our past and possible futures. In our imaginations we enter a world of story untouched by ordinary history. I tried to catch this slip between the folds of objectivity in this little poem:

There is a space between chapters,
a crack in the spine,
an empty space
where two pages meet
and disappear
into a hidden abyss
where things are sewn invisibly together.

Some memory is driven by pain, fear, and anger. We have memories that we seek to flee, avenge, or obliterate. Other memories are driven by love – memories of joyous events, Edens of new beginnings, of children, spouse, and friend. In my own case, the old slides produced this poem driven by a memory of love.

Like a Russian doll
she wears each passage of her life in polymorphous coats.
She is the wise companion, etched by years of circling suns,
the woman burnished silver with accomplishment,
the mate with auburn hair and radiant eyes,
the holder of the household lamp,
the mother of the squirming baby nestling at her breast,
the college ingénue with voice of lark and witty tongue,
the pigtail girl in the taffeta dress,
the urchin hanging from her knees and laughing at her dad.

They hide,
a manifold of nesting forms
around the holy light within
each one the doll,
each one the woman that I love.

For some, the “crack in the spine” is full of fear and pain, for others, joys and Russian dolls forgotten in the daily grind. Most of us will find a mixture where we seek an alchemy to compound futures out of right remembrance.
=

William Johnson Everett
465 Harriett's Trail
Waynesville, NC 28786
828-452-0965
Subscribe to my blog at http://www.williameverett.com/.
Explore Red Clay, Blood River at http://www.redclaybloodriver.com/.

Chataugua AVE in Andrews, NC

7:00 pm -- "The Bright Forever" starring Bobbie Curtis -- Valleytown Cultural Arts Center in Andrews, NC.


A one-woman show written by Gary Carden and performed by Bobbie Curtis.

Fanny Crosby, the character that Bobbie portrays was blinded at six weeks of age by an incompetent doctor. Despite this handicap she wrote over 8,000 hymns and an equal number of poems. Almost every hymn book in use today will contain one of her hymns. In her lifetime she was one of the best known women in the United States. Her sacred songs were sung wherever the English language was spoken. She became a student at the first school for the blind, in New York City, at the age of fifteen. After receiving her education, she remained at the school for 28 more years as a teacher. One of her fellow teachers was Grover Cleveland who later became President of the United States. Never one to bemoan her blindness, her poetry expresses her joy of living.



Bobbie Curtis of the Foothills Little Theatre in Lenoir, N.C. will play Fannie. Bobbie grew up in eastern Caldwell County, NC. The tenth of eleven siblings. Born in the depression era, she longed to be an actress. But, money was a big issue and she was told that none was available to explore whimsical dreams. Pursuing a more practical career, she became a nurse at Grace Hospital and later in the field of public health. Now at the age of 75 she is realizing her dream of being an actress, playing to full houses and receiving accolades.

SIX POETS OF THE MOUNTAIN SOUTH: FORTHCOMING FROM LSU PRESS

(THIS WILL BE RELEASED DURING NATIONAL POETRY MONTH. )

By John Lang Southern Literary Studies Fred Hobson, Series Editor ISBN-13: 978-0-8071-3560-0 PAPER Page count: 240 Trim: 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 Illustrations: none Published: April 2010 $24.95 An LSU Press paperback original In the most extensive work to date on major poets from the mountain South, John Lang takes as his point of departure an oft-quoted remark by Jim Wayne Miller: “Appalachian literature is—and has always been—as decidedly worldly, secular, and profane in its outlook as the [region’s] traditional religion appears to be spiritual and otherworldly.” Although this statement may be accurate for Miller’s own poetry and fiction, Lang maintains that it does not do justice to the pervasive religious and spiritual concerns of many of the mountain South’s finest writers, including the five other leading poets whose work he analyzes along with Miller’s. Fred Chappell, Robert Morgan, Jeff Daniel Marion, Kathryn Stripling Byer, and Charles Wright, Lang demonstrates, all write poetry that explores, sometimes with widely varying results, what they see as the undeniable presence of the divine within the temporal world. Like Blake and Emerson before them, these poets find the supernatural within nature rather than beyond it. They all exhibit a love of place in their poems, a strong sense of connection to nature and the land, especially the mountains. Yet while their affirmation of the world before them suggests a resistance to the otherworldliness that Miller points to, their poetry is nonetheless permeated with spiritual questing. Dante strongly influences both Chappell and Wright, though the latter eventually resigns himself to being simply “a God-fearing agnostic,” whereas Chappell follows Dante in celebrating “the love that moves the sun and other stars.” Byer, probably the least orthodox of these poets, chooses to lay up treasures on earth, rejecting the transcendent in favor of a Native American spirituality of immanence, while Morgan and Marion find in nature what Marion calls a “vocabulary of wonders” akin to Emerson’s conviction that nature is the language of the spiritual. Employing close readings of the poets’ work and relating it to British and American Romanticism as well as contemporary eco-theology and eco-criticism, Lang’s book is the most ambitious and searching foray yet into the worlds of these renowned post–World War II Appalachian poets. John Lang, professor of English at Emory & Henry College in Emory, Virginia, is the author ofUnderstanding Fred Chappell and editor of Appalachia and Beyond: Conversations with Writers from the Mountain South.

IT'S PARTY TIME, BY DEBRA V. EDWARDS

(Debra V. Edwards)

Debra Edwards answered the call to submit her essay from Memories in Black and White, the anthology published by the Royal Scribblers of Cashiers, North Carolina. Enjoy!

And if you want to order a copy of this anthology, please go to City Lights Bookstore's website--www.citylightsnc.com.

It's Party Time

(Let the good times roll !!!)

By: debra v. edwards

My parents were very strict. In this day and age, I'm sure they'd be considered abusive. Especially Momma. We got the belt, slaps, (sometimes for just walking past her) hits, switches and restrictions. We were never allowed to go to the movies, dances, sleep-overs or drive-ins; definitely not drive-ins. We were, however, allowed pets. My refuge and sanity and best friends, were our pets. Otherwise, we were caged or chained to momma's watchful eye.

Very much like a dog that is chained, day in and day out, week after week, month after month, even years. But then some occurrence causes the animal to escape, or be freed, and it will run and run and run wild. It does not want to be caught. It will not listen to pleadings to come back. No. It knows that it will be chained again...harder, this time; or tighter. This dog needs to be free or with ‘his humans'. He was not designed to be ‘tied up'. Once given that freedom, he willingly, comes back and lays on the porch, if kindness is shown. Too many folks (or parents) don't understand this philosophy. I desperately needed some freedom.

To this day, I hate to see a chained dog.

The most revered and severe of our corrections, though, came from The Board of Education! It sickened us when Momma would laugh about that cleverly worded disciplinary rod, to us and to visitors. She boasted of her ‘authority' over us. It always got our attention. It was one inch by two inches and about two and a half feet long. It literally was a wood board.. The Board of Education stayed as a constant reminder in our kitchen, above our back door trim. It fit comfortably there. I remember it well. We all did. Mother had written in bold, black, magic marker on that simple piece of wood, The Board of Education! She was so proud of it. When it was used, we girls had to disobey school rules back then, that we could only were dresses or skirts to school. But when our legs were black and blue, we wore jeans or slacks.

I was the youngest of five siblings and often a witness to that board's use. When taken down, it was "going to be used" and someone was going to be the recipient. When we were in church or a restaurant or, any place where Momma thought we were being a little bit out of line, she simply snapped her fingers, clenched her jaws and with squinted eyes, she pointed to the culprit or at all five of us - sliding that finger down the line. If the response was not immediate and she had to snap again, we knew that was it. Our bodies would start trembling. Everyone thought we were such well-behaved, fine children. We were not allowed to show any hatred in her presence. But we all harbored it anyway. With five of us in seven years, Momma believed you couldn't love a child and discipline them at the same time; she chose discipline.

Daddy was an airline pilot, who was gone many days and nights. We never heard, "just wait till your father gets home." No, sir'ree, that discipline was given often and promptly and seemingly with great pleasure..

So in the summer before my senior year in high school, with my brother and sisters now gone and out on their own; (all leaving by various means of escape), Momma and Daddy decided they could trust me and they took a trip alone for the first time since their "babies started coming!"

I lived seven miles from my high school; boys never dated me. It was either my parents' reputation, the distance from town, the lack of transportation, or maybe as I often felt, it was me. Nobody wanted to date me. So, when my parents' trip was planned and departure time was imminent, I called several girl friends and asked them to come and stay with me. I had found a golden opportunity to taste a little freedom. We decided we would learn to drink and smoke.

The spend-the-night party was to be the Friday night my parents left. They did. I called my friends and said, "Come on, they're gone!" One of the girls was bringing some booze, another some cigarettes, and we were going to finally be ‘free from parental supervision'. Of course these ‘sins' were all coming from their own parents' stash.

Seven miles out, on our forty-five acre farm, distance suddenly was no longer a problem. One of my friend had an older boyfriend that drove and had his own truck. When she showed up, he was with her. The other friend had several guys with her, as well. Then car after truck, after truck, after car began a steady stream up, down, and around the long driveway to my house in the woods. Word had apparently gotten out fast!

The drinking and smoking began. I feverishly began trying to clean up the spilled beer bottles or cans and throw them into a trash can that was rapidly becoming full. The cigarette burns on my mother's fine rugs and carpet, where they were carelessly being tossed down and snubbed out with a boot or shoe. The burn spots were not clean up-able, as desperately as I tried.. cigarette ashes were falling onto the fine "seven different colors of green" sofa, that Momma was so proud of and repeatedly telling us and everyone that visited. "It was special made", she would say. Glass bottles were being christened together; "cheers" and "bottoms up"and one of those even broke as it was christened so hard.. The bottle parts found it's glassy way with tiny blood drops into the carpet below. The five bedroom doors on our main level, were now being closed. It became a hall of closed doors.

I was trying to be in the partying spirit, after all this was officially my first real party. One of the uninvited classmates said she and one of the guys were going back into town to buy more beer and booze; they'd be back soon. An hour or so later, a police car came up to the door and everyone just scattered into closets, under beds, and even ran out into the woods. It seemed that this friend and her fella had had an accident, and although they weren't seriously injured, he totaled his car. She convinced the cop, whom she knew well, as we all did, not to tell her parents. The cop brought her back to the spend-the-night-party and he joined us.

There were many people in my parents' home that I didn't know, as a matter-of-fact, most of them. The word had spread like wildfire, and I learned that night, when there are girls and booze and "cigs" to be had, everyone wants to party. There were older men and younger men and men with "pot". I didn't know what it was at the time, most of us didn't. But the ones who did, were sharing it, one puff at a time, around the room and back. It was disgusting to me to think that one "joint" with so much saliva on it, was passed around and then another would be lit up to follow. Even some of my closest friends were trying it for the first time. This was more than I could handle. I went downstairs to digest it all, as more vehicles seem to be joining us. I was stunned and in a state of stupor. The smell of pot alone was making my head swim. I had to stay more in control.

Our basement was a total apartment in itself as Daddy believed in paying cash for everything and the basement is where we all seven lived until he could afford the upper, main level of the house. It's also where our freezer was kept packed with food. I found the door wide open and the freezer empty. The small t.v. set was gone, the only one we had, as was the majestic clock that Momma cherished and said was an "heirloom". Anything that was toteable...was gone. I didn't cry. I don't remember being scared. I was feeling betrayed by friends and I was in total page shock as to how this could have so easily gotten out of hand.

The highway patrol had radioed ahead to be on the look out for Momma and Daddy in their Chevrolet station wagon. The cop that had joined us, I later understood, stayed just in case an

outcome such as this, would occur. He had disappeared from the party, and reported the accident and at the same time, had also reported "a party out of hand." He knew that my parents were strict and this would never have been allowed. Since it was my house, he could only "call the folks!"

Mom and Dad had turned around half way to Florida and drove back in our driveway in the wee hours of the morning. I had not had the first thing to drink or smoke. I was too busy cleaning up as my parents' home was being destroyed. I was disgusted that people could be such ‘users'; so callous and filthy, not caring where they snuffed out their cigarette, if the beer was spilled on the sofa, or the booze bottle was broken on the teakwood coffee table. How could someone steal from us? What kind of people do things like this? It was such a rude awakening for me. I learned a lot that night. Stuff that I was just not prepared to learn. How did their parents train them? I couldn't bare to look at the bedrooms. At least condoms were used. I saw my first in my own messed up bed, as was all the beds.

As friends were passed out in various places, I continued to make beds and clean up bottles, butts and glasses. I wrapped up the garbage bags and threw them in the back of a leftover truck still parked outside. My truck driver, brother-in-law, came through the door and just shook his head and then went straight to bed downstairs, for a layover. He said nothing.

As I was experiencing exhaustion and worry, I debated about just running away from home with some of the leftover partiers...and then they... walked in the door.

Face to face contact with disgust and pierced lips...I shuddered. But nothing was said. Mom started calling parents of my friends that were still there to come and get the girls, while daddy commenced to ‘escort' the male drunks down the steps and out the back door, telling them "I better never see you back on my property again!" I deserved whatever was coming to me.

I escaped to my bedroom but not a wink of sleep did I get. It was morning now. I kept awaiting that authoritative voice to soon be calling my name. It never came. Days later, nothing was said. Nothing.

To each of their dying days, it was never mentioned and I certainly didn't bring it up either. I'd hear mom talking to other parents about it, but not to me. It was just always referred to as "The Party." When one of my siblings inquired about the whipping that I must have gotten, Daddy just simply said, "She had already paid dearly."

The Party's Over................................

THEY THAT GO DOWN TO THE SEA

Davis, Tom. THEY THAT GO DOWN TO THE SEA. Fayetteville, NC: Old Mountain Press, Inc. 2010. 83 pages, trade paperback. $14.00. www.OldMountainPress.com.

THEY THAT GO DOWN TO THE SEA, compiled by Old Mountain Press, includes poetry and prose by 61 writers. This anthology features authors who wonder at the beauty and mystery of the sea.

A colorful photo of two adorable children graces the cover of this book. Thomas Fielding Dunn stands beside his big brother, Lewis, looking over the sound in Wrightsville Beach, NC. They are waiting for their uncle Lewis to pick them up in his boat flying the US and North Carolina flags.

The poetry ranges from "The Sea Calls to me," by Ann Fogelman; "Shipwreck," Catherine Murphy Haymore; "Reflections in a Pond," Margaret L. Parrish; "The Old Lighthouse Keeper," D. Davis Phillips and to "The Perfect Shell," by Nancy Sollosi.

"Night Sea," by Joanna Catherine Scott describes the lure of the sea: roar of a wild wet beast/ hissing, whispered/ summons to a drowning

Dylan Atkins' imagery of "The Sea," paints a landscape: The deep blue sea is a beautiful sight/ We are happy every night.../I love all sea creatures/I love all bodies of water...

Besides poetry, the prose ranges from "Sea Call," by Tonya Staufer," to "She Who Went Down to the Farm Pond," by Martha O'Quinn.

THEY THAT GO DOWN TO THE SEA is the 12th anthology printed by Old Mountain Press.

Editor Tom Davis acknowledges the contributions of the following authors whose work has appeared in this and all eleven past anthologies: Sandra Ervin Adams, Ed Cockrell, KD Kennedy, Jr., Jo Koster, Brenda Kay Ledford, and Glenda S. Wilkins.

Finally, James Gibson best describes the mesmerism of the sea in, "The Ocean in Me": I stood in the surf/Ocean rhythm in my blood/It never left me.

To order copies of THEY THAT GO DOWN TO THE SEA, go to: www.OldMountainPress.com.

Book reviewed by: Brenda Kay Ledford
www.brendakayledford.com
http://blueridgepoet.blogspot.com

These Blue Ridge Mountain gals love the sea, too. Brenda Kay Ledford, Blanche L. Ledford, and Barbara Ledford Wright, have work in the anthology, THEY THAT GO DOWN TO THE SEA.

Second Fridays of Each Month

Mountain Perk in Hiawassee, Georgia, will host writers on the second Friday of each month beginning on April 9. Glenda Beall is the first reader of this series.
Check back later for  more information.

MEMORIES IN BLACK AND WHITE

MEMORIES IN BLACK AND WHITE: A Collection of Childhood Memoirs, by the Royal Scribbler's, Cashiers Writers Group, was published in 2009 by Main Street Rag Press. Here's how they describe themselves:

The Royal Scribblers is a group of writers who are about as well-adjusted as any creative community can be.

They have been getting together twice a month since 1996 in Cashiers, NC. Meetings are called to order by a quacking duck and a squawking chicken--two wind-up toys that dance simultaneously to different tunes.

And that pretty much describes the Royal Scribblers.

Now, I ask you, what would you expect from a writers group like that? I'd expect to have some fun with them, to enjoy their meetings and their work. And I did--not the meetings, since I've not been to one yet, though I'd like to (if only to hear the duck and the chicken!), I mean this anthology that begins with Foreword by my friend Joyce Foster, a fine poet whose work I featured on my Laureate's Lasso blog last year.

"Time tumbles down the stairs two by two in this last spiral of my life. I have stories that want to be told. They sneak around corners and slide sideways, like naughty imps, into my poetry. For my children, for their father; for my brother and family long gone; for friends here and there; for dreams and for life, I remember and write. Our lives touch and come apart. Through poetry I heal. Through poetry I celebrate the gift of this fragile moment."

I haven't read a better testimonial to the power of words than this in a long time. Besides Joyce, other contributors include Netwest members Ben Eller, Bob Fahey, and Deanna Klingel, as well as Kathie Blozan, Bill Christopher, George Cowan, Debra Edwards, Stephen J. Fischer, Karen Gilfilllan, Elsie Sameulson Haight, Eva Hanson, Jeanne Larimore, and Alicia Savino. Contributors' notes at the end feature photos of the authors, as children and as well-adjusted creative adults!

Perhaps if some of these well-adjusted folks will email me their memories from this book, I will post them on our Netwest blog. Is that a deal?