Anne Shelby

Homeplace

�Is it haunted?�
the fifth grade wants to know,
when I tell them I live in an old old house
where my family has lived for a hundred years.
The children are well versed in local haints.

They�s a woman gets in the car with you
if you stop on a foggy night in Hounchell�s Bend.
She�ll ride to the graveyard and then get out.
You can see straight through her.

Long time ago a Davidson hanged hisself
from a cliff up the Rocky Branch.
My uncle says if you�re up there drunk
you can see that feller swing.

No, I tell them.
I don�t believe in ghosts.
I don�t mention
the bacon I smell frying
winter mornings before daylight
when all I�ve got is oatmeal,
the blue-clad figure
at the edge of the field,
the smoke still rising
from long dead fires —
the crowd,
forever poorly dressed,
always crossing
the Atlantic in crowded boats,
forever with their dogs,
their children,
their baptizings,
funeral dinners,
their sickbeds,
always grubbing newgrounds
with dull little
hoes —

To tell the truth, sometimes
I wish they�d let me alone.
It�s hard to draw a good breath around here.
I entertain fantasies —
an apartment off in a city somewhere,
near theaters and a Greek restaurant,
or a small private cottage by the sea.

They�d follow.
I know they would —
wash their feet,
pack a cheap suitcase
and tag along.
I can see me now,
trying to negotiate
the New York subway
with this bunch in tow.
They never change:
Aaron always showing off
how he can name
every county in Kentucky,
Bernice telling you
her dreams every morning, Gene
with his childish pranks, and Mae
with her sad stories —
like somebody you never heard of
drowning in the river,
or a baby a hundred years ago
dying of a fever. Now what
am I supposed to do with that?

And the beach is out.
They have to have shuck beans
wherever they are, and redeye gravy.
We can�t even
run up to the county seat
without dragging an enormous
trunk of old pictures,
and all that slow, mournful singing
doesn�t go over with the beach crowd.

But nobody ever asks,
�Are you
haunted?�

— Anne Shelby, originally published in Appalachian Studies (Wind Publications).
Reprinted by permission of the author.

Anne Shelby is a Democrat in Clay County, Kentucky, which may give you some idea of her strength of character. Poet, essayist, storyteller, political activist, and singer, Anne is both a preserver of culture and a creator of art. She has taught creative writing at the Kentucky Governor’s School for the Arts and the Appalachian Writers Workshop at Hindman Settlement School, has worked with the Kentucky Arts Council’s artist-in-the-schools program, and has been a contributor to many other workshops and conferences. She performs a one-woman show based on the life of folksinger and activist Aunt Molly Jackson. Anne is also a member of Public Outcry, a group of Kentucky writer/musicians fighting against mountaintop removal coal mining.

She is the grandmother of triplets.

In addition to Appalachian Studies, her books include The Adventures of Molly Whuppie and Other Appalachian Folktales (University of North Carolina Press) and Can A Democrat Get Into Heaven? Politics, Religion, and Other Things You Ain’t Supposed to Talk About (MotesBooks)

I lifted this photo of Anne’s homplace from her website:

__________
P.S. Gail Chandler is also from Clay County.