100th Anniversary: Appalachian poet, folklorist & novelist James Still

[leno...@yahoo.com]

His 100th anniversary is tomorrow. (Not to be confused with the living
Kansas playwright or the "Secular Web" creator.)

I admit I wouldn't be familiar with his name, had my 7th-grade English
teacher not read to us, years ago, a powerful short story of his. It
was "Mrs. Razor," and in it, a six-year-old Appalachian girl keeps
tearfully insisting she has a husband and children, that the husband
has abandoned them, and the children are waiting for her out there.
Finally, her disgusted father drives her in a wagon for several miles
in the direction she points out before turning back. Upon rereading it
a few months ago, I assumed she was supposed to be the same sort of
character as Frankie in "The Member of the Wedding," but apparently the
critics have a very different view. See here:

http://athena.english.vt.edu/~appalach/essaysS/maternal.htm

(Though one has to wonder if Carson McCullers ever read the story
before writing her book! It's certainly possible.)

http://faculty.colostate-pueblo.edu/sandy.hudock/jshome.html
(homepage)

http://www.georgetown.edu/users/sal22/biography.htm
(bio)

http://www.english.eku.edu/SERVICES/KYLIT/still.htm
(bio & critiques)

http://www.ferrum.edu/applit/articles/StillMothGoose.htm
(Introduction to An Appalachian Mother Goose by James Still and Paul
Brett Johnson)

http://www.wcvn.org/content/bookclub/books/2003_nov/bio.htm
(more critiques)

http://www.kentuckystewarts.com/RowanCounty/JamesStillAppalachianwriterdies.htm
(obituary)

I had to do some extra searching to find the news articles about the
anniversary -

http://www.moreheadstate.edu/news/release.aspx?id=9023

http://www.hindmansettlement.org/cultural_programs/writers_workshop_schedule.html
(Hindman, Kentucky event scheduled for August)

He was Kentucky's Poet Laureate from 1995 to 1997.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Still

Born in Alabama, he "lived most of his life in a log house along the
Dead Mare Branch of Little Carr Creek, Knott County, Kentucky."

http://www.ferrum.edu/applit/bibs/StillBib.htm
("James Still's Books for and about Children: Bibliography and Study
Guide.")

http://faculty.colostate-pueblo.edu/sandy.hudock/biblio.html
(LONG bibliography)

Better-known(?) writings:

Hounds on the Mountain (1937)
River of Earth (1940)
On Troublesome Creek (1941)
Way Down Yonder on Troublesome Creek: Appalachian Riddles and Rusties
(1974)
The Wolfpen Rusties: Appalachian Riddles and Gee-Haw Whimmy-Diddles
(1975)
Pattern of a Man (1976)
Jack and the Wonder Beans (1977)
Sporty Creek: A Novel about an Appalachian Boyhood (1977)
The Run for the Elbertas (1980)
The Wolfpen Poems (1986)

http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&q=%22james+still%22+kentucky
http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&q=%22james+still%22+poet

(photos & books covers - assuming it's the same man, he looks quite
different from photo to photo!)

Lenona.

[leno...@yahoo.com]

Last page of "Jack and the Wonder Beans" (1977):

"Ay, no matter. Jack had his barrel full enough. And he bought a second
cow with ribbons to her horns. A pretty cow. One to come fresh while
the other was dry. They lived on banty eggs and garden sass and
crumble-in thereinafter. And nobody could rightly say Jack didn't know
beans. Now, no."

And the giant's refrain?

"Fee, fie, chew tobacco,
I smell the toes of a tadwhacker."

Lenona.