Nancy Simpson has been a good friend for many, many years. She lives in Hayesville, North Carolina, a far western location bordering Georgia, and has worked hard to build a literary community there. She received her MFA from the Warren Wilson program, studying with Heather McHugh. Her poetry has appeared widely across the country in some of the best literary magazines. Carolina Wren Press will be publishing her New and Selected Poems, titled Living Above the Frost Line.
Monday, April 19, 2010
NANCY SIMPSON IS POET OF THE DAY
Nancy Simpson is POET OF THE DAY on my blog Here, Where I Am. Drop by and say hello to Nancy with a comment!
Nancy Simpson has been a good friend for many, many years. She lives in Hayesville, North Carolina, a far western location bordering Georgia, and has worked hard to build a literary community there. She received her MFA from the Warren Wilson program, studying with Heather McHugh. Her poetry has appeared widely across the country in some of the best literary magazines. Carolina Wren Press will be publishing her New and Selected Poems, titled Living Above the Frost Line.
Nancy Simpson has been a good friend for many, many years. She lives in Hayesville, North Carolina, a far western location bordering Georgia, and has worked hard to build a literary community there. She received her MFA from the Warren Wilson program, studying with Heather McHugh. Her poetry has appeared widely across the country in some of the best literary magazines. Carolina Wren Press will be publishing her New and Selected Poems, titled Living Above the Frost Line.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
NC NATIVE WINS RUTH LILLY POETRY PRIZE
I first heard of Eleanor Ross Taylor when I was a student in UNC-Greensboro's MFA writing program. She was the wife of Peter Taylor, the Pulitzer Prize winning novelist and short-story writer and long-time teacher at the university. More intriguing, though, was the news that she was also a poet, considered one of the best by none other than Randall Jarrell. I met Ms. Taylor at several parties, where she was gracious but reserved. Then I read her poetry and found a poet whose voice was and still is completely her own. Now comes the news that Eleanor Ross Taylor has been awarded the Ruth Lilly Poetry prize from The Poetry Foundation, perhaps the most prestigious award given to an American Poet. No poet deserves it more than Ms. Taylor. A native of North Carolina, alumna of UNC-Greensboro, she is also the aunt of Heather Ross Miller, who was born in and continues to live in North Carolina.
“We live in a time when poetic styles seem to become more antic and frantic by the day, and Taylor’s voice has been muted from the start. Muted, not quiet,” said Wiman. “You can’t read these poems without feeling the pent-up energy in them, the focused, even frustrated compression, and then the occasional clear lyric fury. And yet you can’t read them without feeling, as well, a bracing sense of spiritual largesse and some great inner liberty.”
A portfolio of 10 of Taylor’s poems will be featured in the May issue of Poetry. In introducing the selection, Wiman writes:
The winner of this year’s Ruth Lilly Prize is Eleanor Ross Taylor. I suspect the name will be unfamiliar to a number of our readers, the work to even more. Until the excellent selected poems, Captive Voices, was published by LSU Press last year, virtually all of Taylor’s work was out of print. Her slow production (six books in 50 years), dislike of poetry readings (“It seems to me that it’s all for the person and not the poetry”), and unfashionable fidelity to narrative and clarity haven’t helped matters. And yet, as is so often the case, what’s been bad for the career has been good for the poems. With their intricately odd designs and careful, off-kilter music, their vital characters and volatile silences, the poems have a hard-won, homemade fatedness to them. You can feel their future.
Here is one of her more recent poems. Follwing it is the press release for the Lilly Award.
The Diary
1Too much like myself,
it listens critically.
Edits, though seldom rereads.
In the margins: here incoherent.
Like me, it mumbles.
The more I “Speak up, girl!”
the less it says outright,
wants in fact not to say.
2
Contrary to belief, the word diary
means undivulged; clues trail
the pages and the trail breaks off,
scent’s lost. Wandering is
the only way out of this place.
Yet the helpless subjugation
to the daily task,
the need for trysting-place,
love for the white-hot page
that drains the wound, seals it.
3
I know the heroines of the craft-
the small-town wife, the clear some,
cloudy some fretful refrain
in her doubtful second marriage;
Jane Carlyle’s war with crowing cocks.
To whom? To me. They write to me.
From pages hidden in the covered wagon,
“I said nothing, but I thought the more.”
(But in a letter home:
“We are at the mercy of a madman.”)
Missing, Fanny Kemble’s account
of the night she fled upriver.
4
How to confide the footsteps of a shroud
under your window in the night?
The denials, the costumed felons
lurk in your wakings, nervously
pressing mustaches over their teeth.
Why are those scuds of gulls
hanging over the swamp today?
I, splashing, choking, struggling,
sinking in self-sight-
Oh, that little straw!
(from Late Leisure)
Eleanor Ross Taylor Awarded 2010 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize
Award recognizes lifetime accomplishment with $100,000 prize
CHICAGO — The Poetry Foundation is pleased to announce that poet Eleanor Ross Taylor has won the 2010 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize.
Presented annually to a living U.S. poet whose lifetime accomplishments warrant extraordinary recognition, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize is one of the most prestigious awards given to American poets. At $100,000, it is also one of the nation’s largest literary prizes. Established in 1986, the prize is sponsored and administered by the Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. Over the last 25 years, the Lilly Prize has awarded more than $1,800,000. The prize will be presented at the Pegasus Awards ceremony at the Arts Club of Chicago on Tuesday, May 18.
In making the announcement, Christian Wiman, editor of Poetry magazine, cited the strong reserve in Taylor’s poems and praised their “sober and clear-eyed serenity” and authority.“We live in a time when poetic styles seem to become more antic and frantic by the day, and Taylor’s voice has been muted from the start. Muted, not quiet,” said Wiman. “You can’t read these poems without feeling the pent-up energy in them, the focused, even frustrated compression, and then the occasional clear lyric fury. And yet you can’t read them without feeling, as well, a bracing sense of spiritual largesse and some great inner liberty.”
A portfolio of 10 of Taylor’s poems will be featured in the May issue of Poetry. In introducing the selection, Wiman writes:
The winner of this year’s Ruth Lilly Prize is Eleanor Ross Taylor. I suspect the name will be unfamiliar to a number of our readers, the work to even more. Until the excellent selected poems, Captive Voices, was published by LSU Press last year, virtually all of Taylor’s work was out of print. Her slow production (six books in 50 years), dislike of poetry readings (“It seems to me that it’s all for the person and not the poetry”), and unfashionable fidelity to narrative and clarity haven’t helped matters. And yet, as is so often the case, what’s been bad for the career has been good for the poems. With their intricately odd designs and careful, off-kilter music, their vital characters and volatile silences, the poems have a hard-won, homemade fatedness to them. You can feel their future.
Eleanor Ross Taylor has published six collections of poetry: Wilderness of Ladies (1960), Welcome Eumenides (1972), New and Selected Poems (1983), Days Going/Days Coming Back (1991), Late Leisure (1999), and Captive Voices: New and Selected Poems (2009).
A mother of two grown children and a grandmother, Taylor now resides in Charlottesville, Virginia. She has received the Poetry Society of America’s Shelley Memorial Prize (1997–98), a fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1998), the Library of Virginia’s Literary Award for Poetry (2000), and the Aiken Taylor Award for Modern Poetry (2001). She was elected to the Fellowship of Southern Writers in 2009.
Previous recipients of the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize are Adrienne Rich, Philip Levine, Anthony Hecht, Mona Van Duyn, Hayden Carruth, David Wagoner, John Ashbery, Charles Wright, Donald Hall, A.R. Ammons, Gerald Stern, William Matthews, W.S. Merwin, Maxine Kumin, Carl Dennis, Yusef Komunyakaa, Lisel Mueller, Linda Pastan, Kay Ryan, C.K. Williams, Richard Wilbur, Lucille Clifton, Gary Snyder, and Fanny Howe.
MAY CALENDAR FROM OSONDU BOOKSELLERS IN WAYNESVILLE
Saturday, May 1st@ 6:00 pm
It is a Zombie Crawl. Join children’s librarian Carol Dennis and author Eric Brown for a night of the living dead.
Tuesday, May 4th
@10:00 Book Babies
Thursday May 6th
Meet the author
7:00 pm Ann Herendeen, author of Pride/Prejudice and Phyllida and the Brotherhood both published by Harper Collins.
Friday, May 7th
@ 7:00pm Art after Dark
Saturday, May 8th
@ 6:30 Music
Tuesday, May 11
@10:00 Book Babies
@ 6:00 pm Mountain Writers
New members welcome
Thursday, May 13th
@ 1:30 pm afternoon book club
Saturday, May 15th
@ 11:00, it is a Teddy Bear Picnic with our very own Allison Best-Teague. Bring your favorite teddy bear and come and hear about bears. We may even have a bear expert to talk with us.
@1:00 pm meet the author
David Madden with his novel Abducted by Circumstance will read and sign books.
@ 6:30: Music with Jonathan Martin
Monday, May 17th @ 6:30
Nonfiction book club new members are always welcome
Tuesday, May 18th @
10:00 Book Babies
Thursday, May 20th
@ 6:30 Book Club, Spirit Seekers
Saturday, May 22
@6:30 pm Music with Chris Minick
Sunday, May 23
@ 3:00 pm Meet the poet Scott Owens reading from his new collection called Paternity. Books will be available for sale.
Tuesday, May 25th
@ 10:00 Book Babies
@6:30 All Gender All Genre Book Club
New members are always welcome
Saturday, May 29th
@ 6:30, Music with Lorraine Conard
Sunday, April 11, 2010
CONGRATULATIONS TO THOSE WHO RESPONDED...
...to our invitation to blog about your favorite Appalachian book. All of you will be receiving prizes, so if I don't have your mailing address readily available, I may be contacting you for it. We were especially glad to be introduced to Lamb In His Bosom, and thank Gary Garden for sending us this piece. The essays on Fred Chappell's Ancestors and Others (Penny Morse),and Lewis Green's The Silence of Snakes (Bill Everett) were stand-outs as well. And although Melissa is not a Netwest member, her piece on Fair and Tender Ladies was a lovely personal testimonial. She deserves to be rewarded! Carole Thompson's piece on Glenda Barrett honors one of our own best mountain poets. So, thank you to Gary, Bill, Carole, Melissa, and Penny.
We may try another blog prompt in early summer. In the meantime, keep reading and loving what you read.
We may try another blog prompt in early summer. In the meantime, keep reading and loving what you read.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
LEAH MAINES OF FINISHING LINE PRESS
Often we take for granted things we should put on the “I’m so grateful for” list. When I submitted my poetry chapbook manuscript to Finishing Line Press for the second year in a row, my only concern was having the press accept my book for publication. My mind did not take me further than the day an envelope would arrive in my box with my acceptance letter.
Now, a year later, I have to say I’m so grateful to have had the opportunity to work with Leah Maines as my editor for Now Might As Well Be Then. From day one, the entire experience went as smoothly as anyone could expect. Having no clue as to how the publishing world works, I did not know what to expect. Kevin Maines never failed to respond to any question I had and made sure I sent everything Leah would need for editing.
I had sent the wrong copy of a poem, and at the last minute, Leah exchanged it, without complaint, for the correct poem. In fact, she did everything I asked for my book. I am proud of the finished product. My family and my friends tell me they think the book is lovely. Some of my friends, Glenda Barrett, Janice Moore, Mary Ricketson, and Brenda Kay Ledford also had poetry chapbooks published by Finishing Line Press.
The information sent to me by Finishing Line Press helped me with promoting my book, and Leah has helped in other ways on Facebook.
Recently, I asked Leah if she would take time from her busy schedule and answer a few questions for me. Even though she had been ill for a week, she responded. Below is my interview with Leah Maines, Sr. Editor of Finishing Line Press.
GB: How long have you been writing and why did you start in the first place?
Leah: I started writing in college. I'm not sure why I started writing. I was working on the Licking River Review as their business manager. I loved reading the submissions. I started writing.
GB: Who or what inspired you to write?
Leah: The first few poems I wrote in college were really terrible. However, I had a friend who saw some glimmer of talent in them in spite of the "O, how I love thee" in one stanza. He told me I should keep writing, and he handed me a copy of Poetry. I turned to the poem "Splitting Wood" by Billy Collins. That single poem changed my writing life and got me forever hooked on poetry. My friend's kindness led me to the poem. He didn't tell me to forget poetry; he just gently led me down the right path.
GB: What would you say is the hardest thing about writing?
Leah: One must keep writing. Sometimes the writer loses his or her voice. This is what we call "writers block" and it can become difficult to find it once you have lost it. Life tends to get in the way once one falls into that trap. I've found that keeping a journal helps, and not putting high expectations on the craft.
GB: What do you enjoy most about writing?
Leah: The release. Just the letting go of the words. My poems tend to come to me early in the morning. They wake me from my sleep and won't allow me to go back to bed until I put pen to paper. It's the release of the words that gives me some peace and satisfaction. I don't care if anyone ever reads them now. There was a time in my life when I had to prove something--when publication meant everything to me. It doesn't matter to me anymore about my own work. I'm happy to help other people get published now. I get the same satisfaction.
GB: What advice would you give a struggling new writer or poet?
Leah: Keep submitting, and don't allow rejection letters to get you down. Everyone gets rejection letters -- everyone. Just keep at it and keep writing. And keep reading good contemporary poets. Learn from the best, and then find your own voice. Then write and keep writing. You will find publication if you don't give up.
Leah Maines served as the Northern Kentucky University Poet-in-Residence in 2000, funded in part by the National Endowment for Humanities and the Kentucky Humanities Council. She served in the position with poet Joseph Enzweiler. Leah’s book Looking to the East with Western Eyes (Finishing Line Press, 1998)was a Cincinnati/Tri-State regional Bestseller. Another book, Beyond the River (Kentucky Writers Coalition Press, 2002)was the winner of the Kentucky Writers’ Coalition Chapbook Competition.
GB: Thank you, Leah, for giving us your time and answering questions for www.netwestwriters.blogspot.com
I had sent the wrong copy of a poem, and at the last minute, Leah exchanged it, without complaint, for the correct poem. In fact, she did everything I asked for my book. I am proud of the finished product. My family and my friends tell me they think the book is lovely. Some of my friends, Glenda Barrett, Janice Moore, Mary Ricketson, and Brenda Kay Ledford also had poetry chapbooks published by Finishing Line Press.
The information sent to me by Finishing Line Press helped me with promoting my book, and Leah has helped in other ways on Facebook.
Recently, I asked Leah if she would take time from her busy schedule and answer a few questions for me. Even though she had been ill for a week, she responded. Below is my interview with Leah Maines, Sr. Editor of Finishing Line Press.
GB: How long have you been writing and why did you start in the first place?
Leah: I started writing in college. I'm not sure why I started writing. I was working on the Licking River Review as their business manager. I loved reading the submissions. I started writing.
GB: Who or what inspired you to write?
Leah: The first few poems I wrote in college were really terrible. However, I had a friend who saw some glimmer of talent in them in spite of the "O, how I love thee" in one stanza. He told me I should keep writing, and he handed me a copy of Poetry. I turned to the poem "Splitting Wood" by Billy Collins. That single poem changed my writing life and got me forever hooked on poetry. My friend's kindness led me to the poem. He didn't tell me to forget poetry; he just gently led me down the right path.
GB: What would you say is the hardest thing about writing?
Leah: One must keep writing. Sometimes the writer loses his or her voice. This is what we call "writers block" and it can become difficult to find it once you have lost it. Life tends to get in the way once one falls into that trap. I've found that keeping a journal helps, and not putting high expectations on the craft.
GB: What do you enjoy most about writing?
Leah: The release. Just the letting go of the words. My poems tend to come to me early in the morning. They wake me from my sleep and won't allow me to go back to bed until I put pen to paper. It's the release of the words that gives me some peace and satisfaction. I don't care if anyone ever reads them now. There was a time in my life when I had to prove something--when publication meant everything to me. It doesn't matter to me anymore about my own work. I'm happy to help other people get published now. I get the same satisfaction.
GB: What advice would you give a struggling new writer or poet?
Leah: Keep submitting, and don't allow rejection letters to get you down. Everyone gets rejection letters -- everyone. Just keep at it and keep writing. And keep reading good contemporary poets. Learn from the best, and then find your own voice. Then write and keep writing. You will find publication if you don't give up.
Leah Maines served as the Northern Kentucky University Poet-in-Residence in 2000, funded in part by the National Endowment for Humanities and the Kentucky Humanities Council. She served in the position with poet Joseph Enzweiler. Leah’s book Looking to the East with Western Eyes (Finishing Line Press, 1998)was a Cincinnati/Tri-State regional Bestseller. Another book, Beyond the River (Kentucky Writers Coalition Press, 2002)was the winner of the Kentucky Writers’ Coalition Chapbook Competition.
GB: Thank you, Leah, for giving us your time and answering questions for www.netwestwriters.blogspot.com
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
NCWN West Monthly Prose Workshop Will Meet Again May 11th With New Leader
(photo Peg Russell and Richard Argo
NCWN West Prose Group)
This is a message for writers who meet in the NCWN West monthly prose group at Tri County Community College. The group will not meet this month (tomorrow night) but will meet for sure May 11, 2010, 7:00 with your new workshop leader Peg Russell of Murphy. Peg Russell is a long time Netwest member and has been active in this monthly prose writing workshop for years. She has agreed to be the workshop leader since Richard Argo is now unable to do so. We will try to get more information if you need it. Your comments are welcome. Questions too.
If you have specific interests in joining this prose writing group, you need only to be a member of NCWN and live within the Netwest area. There is no extra fee. For about seventeen years now they have been saying, "Netwest members within driving distance are welcome" and also, "Observers are welcome."
A well-kept secret? Learn about the Learning Center!
Do you know about The Learning Center!? Click here to learn about the Jackie Ward Foundation and the Learning Center.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
NAITONAL POETRY MONTH: A POEM A DAY
I INVITE YOU TO VISIT MY BLOG, HERE, WHERE I AM, TO READ A POEM A DAY DURING NATIONAL POETRY MONTH. TODAY'S POEM IS "NAMING THE CONSTELLATIONS," BY JOHN YORK. FEATURED POETS THUS FAR HAVE BEEN TESS KINCAID, FELICIA MITCHELL, & GLENIS REDMOND. UPCOMING POETS ARE DORIS DAVENPORT (N. GEORGIA AFFILACHIAN POET), JULIA NUNNALLY DUNCAN (AN APPALACHIAN BORN AND BRED WRITER), LISA PARKER (ANOTHER APPALACHIAN NATIVE POET), AND MANY OTHERS.
HOPE YOU'LL STOP BY. KB
Sunday, April 4, 2010
POETRY WRITING WORKSHOP
Nancy Simpson will teach a four week poetry writing workshop at
Young Harris College Continued Education
April 16, through Mar 7, 2010. 3:15-5:15. The fee is
$13.00 plus ICL membership fee.
This is a poetry writing workshop with no lecture but plenty
of instruction as we discuss your poems.
Click on This Term to read class description.
Friday, April 2, 2010
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.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
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
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
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!
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
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.
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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.)
Tuesday, March 30, 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://www.amazon.com/Mountain-Wedding-Faye-Gibbons/dp/1590783247
Monday, March 29, 2010
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
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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.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
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.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
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
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
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