Sherry Chandler

Dorothy Sutton

Women writing in Kentucky today share two themes.

One is a loss of culture. Not nostalgia precisely, though it can look a little like it. Rather an urgency to record what was of value about the older skower ways before they disappear.

The second is an honoring of our elders, a need to record the extraordinary heroism of their ordinary lives (a phrasing I think I may have stolen from my friend Georgia Green Stamper).

In Backing Into Mountains (Wind Publications, 2009), Dorothy Sutton explores these themes with extraordinary grace, whether it be the Appalachian schoolbus drivers and mechanics of the title poem:

Your life depends on brakes and lights
up here in these Kentucky hills.
The school bus whines and groans to climb
through hollers, with creek-beds the only roads.
. . .
We try to maintain machines that can roll
without crashing, hold the young ones
back from the edge . . .

or Uncle Lester in “No Man’s Land”

One day he was husking the corn,
feeding the greedy, muddy pigs,
. . .
the next day halfway around the world
in Paris with the prostitutes of Pigalle
. . .
The next day mired in confused
trough trenches of muddy slop
. . .
the next day back in Pike County
slopping the hogs, begging the world
to stop . . .

This selection shows not only Sutton’s great compassion but also her craft: the circling around the sounds and images of pigs and slop in a way that is both humorous and heartbreaking.

Sutton explores far and wide in the matter of Kentucky, from Gorgeous George and Casey Jones to Robert Penn Warren and George Keats.

“Casey Jones” is one of my favorite poems in this collection. Having grown up in a singing/strumming family, as many of us here in Kentucky did, I love the play on the theme of this most famous of all train ballads (not to be confused with the Grateful Dead’s Casey Jones) .

We’re the children of “Casey” Jones
from Cayce, Kentucky. In 1900,
Casey Jones died trying
to find the time he’d misplaced somewhere
between Memphis and Mississippi.
. . .
They dug him out, one legend says,
one hand on the throttle, to increase his speed,
the other hand firmly gripping the brake.

Here is the central dilemma of the theme of loss of culture. We tend, us older folk in Kentucky, to come from timeless sorts of places but now we are very much caught up in the rush of time. Our roots are in the folkways, our branches embrace Richard Dawkins and Picasso.

And right about now, Uncle Lester is crying “Whoa, damn you,” not just to the mule of the twentieth century but also to that last metaphor. Both of ‘em kind of got the bits in their teeth and took off.

Here’s a much better extended metaphor, from the Richmond Register:

Dublin poet Eileen Casey said recently of Sutton’s work: “The title poem of this collection pays tribute to the tenacity of the bus drivers of Appalachia, a cultural region in the Eastern United States, forced to breathtakingly negotiate very difficult terrain. In the same way, Dorothy Sutton takes each poem (and us) from one imaginative location to another, by the sheer force of her deep and intimate knowledge of what it is to be human. The poems are exquisitely crafted, steering through words, like those Appalachian bus drivers, trying to maintain machines that can roll without crashing, hold the young ones back from the edge, carry them all the places they need to go. These poems are a joy to read, in terms of capturing the cadences of lives lived and voices heard in the Kentucky of her childhood, different and yet the same as mine in Ireland. An emotional bridge is formed between Kentucky and the rest of the world, indeed a breathtaking reading experience.”

Dorothy Sutton is reading this Tuesday, March 9, at the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning’s Kentucky Great Writer series. It’s an evening to celebrate Wind Publications. Her fellow readers are J. Stephen Rhodes, author of The Time I Didn’t Know What to Do Next (my remarks here) and Normandi Ellis, author of Fresh-Fleshed Sisters. The festivities begin with open mic signups at 6:30, featured readings begin at 7:30.

Eclectic Living Room

The Eclectic Living Room meets at the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning one week before every Kentucky Great Writers reading to discuss and “celebrate” the work. The discussion is led by Leatha Kendrick, who is a wonderful appreciator of other people’s work and who, as a friend just said to me, reads like a writer. Most of those who attend the discussion are also writers. So, participants have an opportunity not only to explore the work that they will soon be hearing but also to hone their own writing skills. Each session ends with a writing prompt or exercise.

The Morris Book Shop is there to give participants a chance to look at and buy the books in question.

And sometimes, as last night, the group is privileged to have the publisher present to add his insights to both the writers and the publishing process.

At last night’s session we discussed the work of Normandi Ellis, Dorothy Sutton, and J. Stephen Rhodes, all three of whom have books out from Wind Publications and all three of whom will be reading next Tuesday, February 9, at the Carnegie Center as part of the Kentucky Great Writers Series (funded by LexArts). The featured readers begin at 7:30; the open mic begins at 6:30. Local folk, mark it on your calendar.

That address is 251 West Second Street, Lexington.

I consider all three of these fine writers personal friends and I have featured work by Steve, Dorothy, and Normandi here on the blog. I can attest that they are all great readers. It will be a fine evening.

I guess this reads a little bit like an infomercial, and I guess that’s all right. Who can you praise if you can’t praise your friends?

Normandi Ellis

Voluptous Iron

One summer afternoon
fresh sheets flapped
on the laundry line;
the hot breath
of my mother�s
iron sighed
against my father�s shirt.
I still remember
its steamy kisses
against wrinkles.
ah!
Ah!
AH!

— Normandi Ellis, reprinted by permission of the author.

Normandi Ellis is that rara avis, a feminist mystic who is also an icon of Kentucky letters. She is a featured artist of the Southern Arts Federation. She is very active in the National Association for Poetry Therapy and the Center for Journal Therapy. She has translated The Egyptian Book of the Dead. She was a finalist for the Kentucky Book Award in fiction for 2007 and has been awarded an Al Smith Fellowship from the Kentucky Arts Council and a YMCA Writer’s Voice; Writer in Residence Fellowship Grant. She is a beloved teacher/facilitator. She is also a world traveller who, with Gloria Taylor Brown, will be offering this October, a weeklong writing practice workshop on the Nile: Re-membering the Body Divine:

Join us in this spiritual writing practice as we sail, like Isis, along the Nile gathering the fragmented parts of ourselves and weaving them back together to create the sacred narrative of our lives. Meditate upon your life. Feast upon the fruits of the goddesses and gods. Steep yourself in magic. Open your heart. Learn to utter words of power. As we sail in our dhabaya and tour the temples that were home to the highest spiritual principles, we will come home to the Self, to the inner sanctum.

During the tour, we will be creating a book, with each person contributing a chapter, that would be publishable, either on the web, or in print. Bring your laptop computers, your digital recorders, or your pen and paper. This is your opportunity to begin your masterpiece.

More on NILAS

I have been talking to Patricia Monaghan, editor of the current NILAS Newsletter. Patricia says:

NILAS is an interesting and important organization, one that breaks down the barriers between academic and non-academic intellectual work. Storytellers, poets, and other creative types are as much part of NILAS as those with academic appointments (the current president is a storyteller).

I was pleased with the femininity of the [current newsletter] collection … that more women seemed to be writing (and writing VERY well) about plants. Also the underlying theme of sensuality–it was all a bit like having the literary equivalent of Georgia O’Keeffe coming into my mailbox.

I give you one more poem from the Fall 2004 Newsletter, this one from Frankfort poet Normandi Ellis. Normandi is the president-elect of the National Association of Poetry Therapy Foundation and works with elders and youth at risk. While Ann Lederer’s poem dealt with harvest and the season’s end, Normandi’s gives us the season’s beginning. These last few sunny lengthening days – some of them warm – remind me that the earth is turning and soon, none too soon to suit me, it will be –

Late April, John’s Branch

This morning on yesterday’s shorn lawn –
dandelion tufts
and rain-drenched violets.
Redbuds recede into green leafing
trees. Bluebells bloom their last
among the tall creek bank grass.
Blues and pinks fade fast –
now comes the season of white dogwood and locusts,
a season of yellow wood poppies.
Underneath the green umbrella of leaves
white mayapples flower.
Rain drips into the red
upturned lips of trillium.

Handing down and trading plants is, it seems to me, a tradition with women so writing about them should come natural to us. The white trillium pictured here has bloomed against the north side of our house for thirty plus years, surviving drought and flood. My late mother-in-law brought it here from the Red River Gorge during a time when the river was going to be dammed and folk were allowed to take what they could find. Fortunately, that damming did not happen, and I consider the trillium a legacy that I guard with care.

The theme of the next NILAS Newsletter (Winter 2005) will be “Experiencing Animal Presence: Totemism, Shapeshifting, Story” – nonfiction and fiction, poetry and artworks that evoke cross-species empathy and communication through what NILAS refers to as totemic expression. Submissions should be e-mailed to Marion W. Copeland, guest editor, or mailed to her at

128 Amherst Road
Pelham, MA 01002

Deadline for submission: Monday March 14, 2005

Addendum: I highly recommend Patricia Monaghan’s two latest collections of poems: Dancing with Chaos (Salmon, 2003) and Homefront (FootHills, 2004).

Nature in Legend and Story (NILAS)

My Fall 2004 NILAS Newsletter just came in. At first I thought it was a little late but then I realized it was operating on poetry publication time. This reckoning is somewhat similar to my grandfather’s sun time — or at any rate to the way he judged noon by the sun when I would follow him to the field all those years ago. And like the leftover bacon and biscuits in the field lunch, this newsletter tastes all the better for the wait.

It looks unassuming – just a sheaf of letter paper stapled in the upper right corner like any photocopied office document. But guest editor Patricia Monaghan, a Pushcart Prize winner, has called on poets from Alaska to Mississippi, from Vermont to California, and over the sea to Ireland to comment on the theme “Flowers, Fruits, and Seeds.” The result is a collection that Lexington poet Ann Neuser Lederer aptly describes as “a treat.”

There is a considerable Kentucky connection – Ann is included, as am I, and also Frankfort poet and mentor of poets, Normandi Ellis. Ann Fisher-Wirth, whose chapbook The Trinket Poems was published in Wind #90, also has a poem in the collection.

My NILAS Newsletter poem, posted as this week’s entry on the Poetry page, concerns my ongoing battle with poison ivy. Says Ann,

Many familar chords: I’ve tried kettles of boiling water, in addition to the garbing up that you describe. But after a bad rash, now mainly avoidance. It’s tangled so with the regular ivy and some odd small ground loving morning glories, that I’m now inclined to let the whole mess do what it wants to.

Here is a glimpse into Ann’s own chemical-free garden from NILAS:

Harvesting

Right before the first killing frost,
I gathered the last tiny tomatoes to dry,
now sweeter from cold, and nostalgia.

I rescued the plumes of Russian sage,
like blue breaths sucked inward, then held.
As I plucked the laced dill, her seeds
escaped among the elfin mints.

I brooded on my harvest, as though it were
my own tall boy
chasing his footprints at the ocean’s edge,
just as when he was a toddler.

I sat down with pride at my outdoor table,
with bees made restless by their premonitions.

The purple grapes glowing
in the late sunshine
need not be mentioned
as I did not really grow them,
nor the pumpkin I would add to complete
the appropriate palette.