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.

www.iclyhc.org

Click on This Term to read class description.

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