Sherry Chandler

Davis McCombs

Before Mammoth Cave National Park was established in 1941, the cave was in the hands of a series of private owners who used it for various purposes. One, Dr. John Croghan, briefly established a tuberculosis hospital within the cave. Dr. Croghan’s negro slave Stephen Bishop, who worked as a cave guide, explored and mapped much of the cave in the early 19th century. Bishop became widely famous in his own time and in ours.

In the late 2oth century, the young poet Davis McCombs also worked as tour guide in Mammoth Cave National Park. McCombs has become a bit of a legend himself. Ultime Thule, the collection of poems he wrote out of his experiences as a cave guide, not only won the Yale Younger Poets competition in 2000 but also was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle award that year.

McCombs might be called the third generation of Kentucky poets to use the sonnet for nontraditional purposes. (The others are Jesse Stuart and Jim Wayne Miller.) Ultime Thule contains two sonnet sequences about the cave, the opening and longer (19 poems) in the voice of Stephen Bishop, the closing (10 poems) in the voice of a modern cave guide. The penultimate poem in the Bishop sequence deals with his fame.

Fame

It was the night before the night before last
when I sat so deep in thought by the fire.
The Doctor boasts that I was the merest germ
of a man when he bought me. Through him,
I was able, in time, to acquire a knowledge
of science, a considerable degree of culture.
Through him, my fame—the subject of articles,
my map distributed widely. But fame,
like the fire in the hearth, must be fed:
a bundle of twigs soon needs a log to stay
alight. And then full thirty cords of oak.
I am ever in search of exploits, discoveries.
Some nights I wake in darkness to know
a greater darkness waits. A hillside. A mouth.

Possibly related posts:

Davis McCombs

Repudiated Poems

Dismal Rock

Poets Laureate

Davis Grubb

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.