SECTION ELEVEN
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COLUMN
SIXTY-ONE, JULY 1, 2001
(Copyright © 2001 Al Aronowitz)
THANKS
Subject:
Re: [AGALIST] COLUMN 58
Date: Sat, 28 Apr 2001 00:05:11 -0000
From: "Jordan Green" <dickeee59@hotmail.com>
To: info@blacklistedjournalist.com
Al,
Immense
thanks for putting my poem on the web. It bolsters my confidence. I
hope the poem is worthy of the audience that is your gang of mavericks. I
hope it's good enough for the City of New York. I'm glad you've straddled
journalism and the rough edges of bohemia.
Yours,
Jordan
##
* * *
ANYBODY HEARD FROM KAY?
Subject: KaJA
(Kay Johnson
Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2001 00:38:55 +0100
From: rudiec@ms.com
To: info@blacklistedjournalist.com
Hi
I was on your
site through a google search for the Beat Poet Kay Johnson.
Yours
Catherine
Rudie
* * *
THE GREATEST!
Subject: Re:
[AGALIST] COLUMN 58
Date: Sat, 28 Apr 2001 11:00:30 -0700
From: "Merilene M. Murphy" <peazritr@mediaone.net>
To: <info@blacklistedjournalist.com>
dear Al!
you're the greatest! i know
i must have said this to you before
* * *
A DEATH IN KENTUCKY
Subject: Fwd:
James Still dies at 94
Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2001 12:01:26 EDT
From: Tappingmyphone@aol.com
To: info@blacklistedjournalist.com
this in
today's Courier. blessings from Kentucky.
Ron
The
Courier-Journal
Metro
Sunday, April
29, 2001
Author James
Still, known for love of Appalachia, dies at 94
Wrote acclaimed mountain novel 'River of Earth'
By JUDITH
EGERTON
An
Appalachian voice of simple eloquence and poetry is silent.
Former
Kentucky poet laureate James Still of Hindman, Ky., died yesterday afternoon at
Hazard Appalachian Regional Medical Center after a brief illness. He was 94.
Still, an
Alabamian by birth and an Eastern Kentuckian by choice, wrote the critically
acclaimed novel "River of Earth." He was also known for his short
stories, poetry and children's books, including "Jack and the Wonder
Beans."
When it was
published in 1940, "River of Earth" shared the Southern Authors Award
with Thomas Wolfe's "You Can't Go Home Again."
Still's
stories and poems have been published in the nation's most prestigious
magazines, among them The Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic, The Yale Review
and The Saturday Evening Post.
Still's two
best-known poems are "Heritage," which was read as part of a eulogy
for Appalachian author Harry Caudill and during a memorial service for Governor
Bert T. Combs, and "Those I Want in Heaven With Me Should There Be Such a
Place," which Still read during a party at the Hindman Settlement School
near his home to celebrate his 90th birthday.
Mike Mullins,
executive director of the school and a friend of Still, said
yesterday that the author brought "more prestige to the school than
anything
Mullins said,
"I'm sitting here trying to figure out how it's gonna be without him."
Author George
Ella Lyon of Lexington described Still as "a very cosmopolitan man living
down there in Knott County."
Lyon said
yesterday: "He had a perfect ear. He could convey so much of character and
place without using the sort of dialect that's graphically depicted. He did it
in the rhythm, the word choice and the metaphors; not by using apostrophes and
strange spellings.
"The
beauty of his language and the fact that he wrote in so many genres was really a
model for me," Lyon said, describing Still as a poet, novelist, short-story
writer, children's writer, and "a collector of folk ways and mountain
speech."
Although
Still never achieved the literary recognition or celebrity status
Kentucky
writer Wendell Berry has called Still a "nearly perfect master of the short
story," and said Still belongs "in the company of the best writers of
all places and times."
Writers
praise Still's spare, naturalistic style, which accurately captured the rhythms
and unique glossary of mountain speech. His central theme related to the value
of heritage and proper stewardship of the land is one that resonates with
contemporary readers.
Still's
stories are richly detailed observations of the people and land of
English
professor H.R. Stoneback of the State University of New York called Still
"a master stylist" in a 1990 article for Kentucky Review, in which
Stoneback, an expert on Hemingway and William Faulkner, said Still's "River
of Earth" ranks with the finest works of Sherwood Anderson, Faulkner,
Hemingway and Mark Twain.
Over the
years, Still, a modest man who loved to cook and garden, became friends with
many notable authors, including Katherine Anne Porter and Robert Frost. But his
closest relationships were with the people of Knott County and the neighbors
near his two-story log house at Dead Mare Branch, particularly the teachers and
students of the Hindman Settlement School. . . ##
* * *
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