Sherry Chandler

I’m off to attend the Mountain Heritage Literary Festival at Lincoln Memorial University:

We believe that LMU is at the epicenter of the Appalachian literary movement. Situated at the historic Cumberland Gap, we have our feet firmly planted in the fertile soil of the past and the other in the promise of the future (sic). Our festival not only celebrates the rich history of Appalachian literature, but also offers a guiding light for a new generation of writers who have been inspired by the writers who come from LMU and other writers of the Appalachian South. The Mountain Heritage Literary Festival celebrates our living history while also providing master classes, workshops, lectures and readings to entertain and inform writers of today’s generation.

Besides the literary tradition that is still thriving at LMU, we also offer an amazingly beautiful space for writers to find inspiration. This is a festival that is completely down-home, accessible and fun– traits that Appalachians have rightly been known for. Instead of fancy meals, at the Mountain Heritage Literary Festival you’ll be fed the food your grandmother might have prepared for you. You’ll breathe in the crisp air of the Cumberland Mountains and be treated to traditional music strummed on an autoharp. There will be plenty of music to be heard, plays to be seen and good fellowship to be had.

Back Sunday morning.

Meanwhile, let’s celebrate this and this.

La Géante

Du temps que la Nature en sa verve puissante
Concevait chaque jour des enfants monstrueux,
J’eusse aimé vivre auprès d’une jeune géante,
Comme aux pieds d’une reine un chat voluptueux.

J’eusse aimé voir son corps fleurir avec son âme
Et grandir librement dans ses terribles jeux;
Deviner si son coeur couve une sombre flamme
Aux humides brouillards qui nagent dans ses yeux;

Parcourir à loisir ses magnifiques formes;
Ramper sur le versant de ses genoux énormes,
Et parfois en été, quand les soleils malsains,

Lasse, la font s’étendre à travers la campagne,
Dormir nonchalamment à l’ombre de ses seins,
Comme un hameau paisible au pied d’une montagne.

— Charles Baudelaire

Giantess

When Nature once in lustful hot undress
Conceived gargantuan offspring, then would I
Have loved to live near a young giantess,
Like a voluptuous cat at a queen’s feet.

To see her body flower with her desire
And freely spread out in its dreadful play,
Guess if her heart concealed some heavy fire
Whose humid smokes would swim upon her eye.

To feel at leisure her stupendous shapes,
Crawl on the cliffs of her enormous knees,
And, when in summer the unhealthy suns

Have stretched her out across the plains, fatigued,
Sleep in the shadows of her breasts at ease
Like a small hamlet at a mountain’s base.

— Karl Shapiro, from Flowers of Evil, A Selection, ed. Marthiel and Jackson Mathews (New Directions, 1955)

Other translations here.