by James Still
And some, perched on a head, would make a dog laugh;
And the female shoes—God help us!—
Raised a woman higher off the ground than she ought
to be.
My woman, she would ride over to Caney Creek
On my fine mare, a steed as pretty as a second wife;
She would grab and snatch and shove with the best of
them
And bring stuff home and cut and shape and sew
And make them over to fit, to cover our nakedness.
My woman can make anything—garden, victuals,
children, satisfaction.
She made me.”
Recollection
More than sixty years ago
when I wrote River of Earth
I had little awareness of
the evil in the world.
God was not too far up
in the sky, and He spent
a lot of time looking out
for me.
Everything
I truly needed
He would provide;
and when I wearied
of this earth, He
would take my hand
and say, “Come
live in My house.”
At Year’s End
Now is the world metal,
The sky leaded day to day,
Earth iron and iron-resounding;
Where the heel strikes it echoes
frigid air,
Far and afar, and farther still.
I must blow upon this living spark
At the dying of the year,
Spare it from death, from outer
dark.
Those I Want in Heaven with Me Should There Be Such a Place
First, I want my dog Jack,
Granted that Mama and Papa are there,
And my nine brothers and sisters,
And “Aunt” Fanny who diapered me, comforted me, shielded me,
Aunt Enore who was too good for this world,
And the grandpa who used to bite my ears,
And the other one who couldn’t remember my name—
There were so many of us;
And Uncle Edd—”Eddie Boozer” they called him—
Who had devils dancing in his eyes,
And Uncle Luther who laughed so loud in the churchyard
He had to apologize to the congregation,
And Uncle Joe who saved the first dollar he ever earned,
And the last one, and all those in between;
And Aunt Carrie who kept me informed:
“Too bad you’re not good-looking like your daddy”;
And my first sweetheart, who died at sixteen,
Before she got around to saying “Yes”;
I want my dog Jack nipping at my heels,
Who was my boon companion,
Suddenly gone when I was six;
And I want Rusty, my ginger pony,
Who took me on my first journey—
Not far, yet far enough for the time;
I want the playfellows of my youth
Who gathered bumblebees in bottles,
Erected flutter mills by streams,
Flew kites nearly to heaven,
And who before me saw God.
Be with me there.
My Days
Those, those were my days,
My thoughts and my ways.
How did I stand the times?
Read my tales, spin my rhymes.
Bibliography
Book Collections in Which James Still’s Poems Have Appeared
Blum, Joshua, Bob Holman, Mark Pellington, comps. The United States of Poetry. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1996.
Bread Loaf Anthology. Middlebury, Vt.: Middlebury College Press, 1939.
Brewton, Sara, and John E. Brewton, comps. America Forever New. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1968.
Browning, Sister Mary Carmel, ed. Kentucky Authors. Owensboro, Ky.: Bresica College, 1968.
Country Traveler. New York: Time-Life, 1990.
Francisco, Edward, Robert Vaughan, and Linda Francisco, comps. The South in Perspective: An Anthology of Southern Literature. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2001.
Higgs, Robert J., Ambrose N. Manning, and Jim Wayne Miller, eds. Appalachia Inside Out, Volume 1: Conflict and Change. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1995.
———. Appalachia Inside Out, Volume 2: Culture and Custom. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1995.
McNeil, Nellie, and Joyce Squibb, eds. A Southern Appalachian Reader. Boone, N.C.: Appalachian Consortium Press, 1989.
Montgomery, Whitney, and Vaida Stewart Montgomery, eds. Moon in the Steeple. Dallas: Kaleidograph Press, 1937.
———. Sparks Afar. Dallas: Kaleidograph Press, 1936.
Stewart, Albert, ed. Dark Unsleeping Land: Kentucky Writing No. 3. Morehead, Ky.: Morehead State College Press, 1966.
Still, James. Hounds on the Mountain. New York: Viking Press, 1937.
———. River of Earth: The Poem and Other Poems. Lexington, Ky.: King Library Press, 1982-83.
———. Way Down Yonder on Troublesome Creek: Appalachian Riddles and Rusties. New York: Putnam, 1974; Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1986.
———. The Wolfpen Poems. Berea, Ky.: Berea College Press, 1986.
———. The Wolfpen Rusties: Appalachian Riddles and Gee-Haw Whimmy-Diddles. New York: Putnam, 1975; Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1989.
White, Helen, and Redding S. Sugg Jr., eds. From the Mountains. Memphis: Memphis State University Press, 1972.
Previous Publications of James Still’s Poems
“Abandoned House.” Progressive Farmer 69, no. 4 (Apr. 1954): 102.
“After Some Twenty Years Attempting to Describe a Flowering Branch of Redbud.” Appalachian Heritage 16, no. 2 and 3 (spring/summer 1988): 13; River of Earth.
“Aftergrass.” Kaleidograph 7, no. 10 (Feb. 1936): 6; River of Earth; Wolfpen Poems.
“Answer.” Kaleidograph 7, no. 2 (Jun. 1935): 13; Montgomery, Sparks Afar.
“Apple Trip.” New York Times, 17 Jun. 1958, 28; Mountain Life and Work 39, no. 3 (fall 1963): 45; Appalachian Heritage 4, no. 2 (spring 1976): 1; Appalachian Heritage 13, no. 3 (summer 1985): 13; Wolfpen Poems; Wolfpen Rusties.
“Apples.” Atlantic 179, no. 2 (Feb. 1947): 112; Stewart, Dark Unsleeping Land; Browning, Kentucky Authors; Appalachian Heritage 4, no. 2 (spring 1976): 1; Appalachian Heritage 13, no. 3 (summer 1985): 20; Wolfpen Poems.
“Apples in the Well.” The American Voice 5 (winter 1986): 73.
“Are You Up There, Bad Jack?” Appalachian Heritage 7, no. 2 (spring 1979): 58; Appalachian Heritage 13, no. 3 (summer 1985): 9; Wolfpen Poems.
“Artist.” Kentucky Poetry Review 25, no. 2 (fall/winter 1989/90): 102.
“At Year’s End.” The American Voice 38 (1995): 121.
“Banjo Bill Cornett” [“Banjo Bill Cowley,” “Banjo Bill Brewer”]. Household Magazine 38, no. 7 (Jul. 1938): 1; Appalachian Heritage 13, no. 3 (summer 1985): 17; River of Earth; Wolfpen Poems.
“Broken Ibis, The.” Virginia Quarterly Review 23, no. 3 (summer 1947): 385; Browning, Kentucky Authors, Stewart, Dark Unsleeping Land; Wolfpen Poems.
“Burned Tree” [“A Burned Tree Speaks”]. Boy’s Life 21, no. 10 (Oct. 1931): 61.
“Candidate” [“Statement to a Candidate”]. Mountain Life and Work 50, no. 12 (Dec. 1974), back cover; Wolfpen Poems.
“Child in the Hills.” Atlantic 157, no. 2 (Feb. 1936): 226; Hounds on the Mountain; Appalachian Heritage 13, no. 3 (summer 1985): 15; Wolfpen Poems.
“Child’s Wisdom, A” [“Child’s Country”]. New York Times, 22 May 1938, 8E; River of Earth; Wolfpen Poems.
“Clabe Mott” [“Mountain Men: (1) Uncle Ambrose, (2) Clabe Mott”]. Kaleidograph 7, no. 9 (Jan. 1936): 13; Montgomery, Moon in the Steeple; Appalachian Heritage 13, no. 3 (summer 1985): 16; River of Earth; Wolfpen Poems.
“Coal
Town” [“Mountain Coal Town”]. Sewanee Review 44, no. 3 (Jul.-Sep. 1936): 319; Hounds on the Mountain; Wolfpen Poems; Higgs, Appalachia Inside Out, Volume 1.
“Come Down from the Hills.” Hounds on the Mountain; Wolfpen Poems.
“Common Crow, The.” Kentucky Poetry Review 16, nos. 2-3 (summer-fall 1980): 50; Wolfpen Poems.
“Court Day.” Hounds on the Mountain; Lexington Leader, 4 Jul. 1937, 5; Wolfpen Poems.
“Dance on Pushback” [“Dance on Pushback Mountain”]. Esquire 6, no. 4 (Oct. 1936): 65; Appalachian Heritage 13, no. 3 (summer 1985): 10; Wolfpen Poems; Wolfpen Rusties.
“Day of Flowers” [“Memorial Day: Little Carr Creek”]. Kentucky Poetry Review 14, no. 1 (winter-spring 1978): 3; River of Earth; Wolfpen Poems.
“Death in the Hills.” Fantasy 6, no. 2 (1939): 22.
“Death of a Fox.” Wolfpen Poems.
“Death on the Mountain” [also published as part of a larger poem of the same name; that poem included all of “Shield of Hills” and part of “Yesteryear’s People”). Mountain Life and Work 11, no. 4 (Jan. 1936): 15; Hounds on the Mountain; Wolfpen Poems.
“Dove.” Appalachian Heritage 21, no. 2 (spring 1993): 3.
“Dreams.” Arcadian Magazine 1, no. 3 (Apr. 1931): 23.
“Drought” [“Drought on Troublesome”]. Virginia Quarterly Review 21, no. 2 (spring 1945): 238; Wolfpen Poems.
“Dulcimer” [“Mountain Dulcimer”]. Virginia Quarterly Review 11, no. 3 (Jul. 1935): 396; Literary Digest 120, no. 4 (27 Jul. 1935): 28; Mountain Life and Work 11, no. 3 (Oct. 1935): 10; Hounds on the Mountain; Durham [N.C.] Herald, 4 Jul. 1937; Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, 4 Jul. 1937; Greensboro [N.C.] News, 4 Jul. 1937; Mountain Life and Work 39, no. 2 (summer 1965): 15; Wolfpen Poems.
“Early Whippoorwill.” Nation 178, no. 13 (17 Mar. 1954): 263; Appalachian Heritage 2, no. 4, and 3, no. 1 (fall-winter 1974-75): 141; Browning, Kentucky Authors; Stewart, Dark Unsleeping Land; Appalachian Heritage 13, no. 3 (summer 1985): 17; Wolfpen Poems.
“Earth-Bread” [“Black Bread”]. Publications of the Poetry Society of Florida, 1936; Poetry 50, no. 2 (May 1937): 70-71; Wolfpen Poems; Higgs, Appalachia Inside Out, Volume 1.
“Epitaph for Uncle Ira Combs, Mountain Preacher.” Hounds on the Mountain; Lexington Leader, 4 Jul. 1937, 5; The Teacher, Apr. 1938, 34; Wolfpen Poems.
“Eyes in the Grass.” Hounds on the Mountain; Miami Daily News, 8 Aug. 1937; Scholastic 31, no. 27 (18 Sep. 1937); Wolfpen Poems.
“Farm” [“Mountain Farm”]. Household Magazine 36, no. 3 (Mar. 1936): 58; Hounds on the Mountain; Wolfpen Poems; Francisco, The South in Perspective.
“Fiddle” [“Mountain Fiddle”]. Publications of the Poetry Society of Florida, Jan. 1936; Household Magazine 38, no. 9 (Sep. 1938): 1.
“Fiddlers’ Convention on Troublesome Creek.” New York Herald-Tribune, 13 Jul. 1936, 20.
“Foal” [“Spring Foal”]. Mountain Life and Work 12, no. 1 (Apr. 1936): 11; Wind 2, no. 7 (spring 1973): 3; Wolfpen Poems.
“Fox Hunt on Defeated Creek.” Frontier and Midland 16, no. 3 (spring 1936): 186; New York Herald-Tribune, 28 Jun. 1936.
“Funnel Spider.” Appalachian Review 2, no. 3 (spring 1968): 14; Wolfpen Poems.
“Granny Frolic” [“Granny Frolic on Wolfpen,” “Granny Race,” “On Double Creek” (different from the poem of the same name in Hounds on the Mountain)]. Saturday Evening Post 212, no. 40 (30 Mar. 1940): 62; Mountain Life and Work 43, no. 4 (Feb. 1968): 23; Wolfpen Rusties; Appalachian Heritage 13, no. 3 (summer 1985): 8; Wolfpen Poems.
“Graveyard” [“Graveyard in the Hills”]. Atlantic 158, no. 1 (Jul. 1936): 93; New York Herald-Tribune, 28 Jun. 1936; Louisville Courier-Journal, 27 Jun. 1937, 7; Lincoln Herald [Lincoln Memorial University publication] 41 (Oct. 1938): 10; Hounds on the Mountain; Wolfpen Poems.
“Here in My Bed.” Kentucky Poetry Review 21, no. 1 (spring/summer 1985): 29.
“Heritage” [“Mountain Heritage”]. New Republic 85, no. 1098 (18 Dec. 1935): 170; Boston Evening Transcript, 17 Jul. 1937, 2, 9; Hounds on the Mountain; Appalachian Heritage 13, no. 3 (summer 1985): 11; Wolfpen Poems; Country Traveler; McNeil, A Southern Appalachian Reader; Blum, The United States of Poetry; Higgs, Appalachia Inside Out, Volume 2.
“High Field.” Appalachian Heritage 13, nos. 1-2 (winter/spring 1985): 15; Wolfpen Poems.
“Hill-Born, The.” Sewanee Review 44, no. 1 (Jan.-Mar. 1936): 99; Hounds on the Mountain; Appalachian Heritage 13, no. 3 (summer 1985): 6; Wolfpen Poems.
“Hill-Lonely.” Household Magazine 38, no. 11 (Nov. 1938): 1.
“Hillsman Speaks, A.” Arcadian Life 24 (Feb. 1937): 5.
“Horse Swapping” [“Horse Swapping on Troublesome Creek”]. Saturday Review of Literature 12, no. 11 (13 Jul. 1935): 10; Columbia [S.C.] State, 11 Jul. 1937; Hounds on the Mountain; Wolfpen Poems.
“Horseback in the Rain.” Boston Evening Transcript, 17 Jul. 1937, 2; Frontier and Midland 17, no. 3 (spring 1937): 158; Hounds on the Mountain; Wolfpen Poems.
“Hounds on the Mountain.” Sewanee Review 45, no. 2 (Apr.-Jun. 1937): 165; Louisville Courier-Journal, 16 May 1937, section 4, p. 4; Hounds on the Mountain; Unaka Range 4 (Jun. 1977): 6; Appalachian Heritage 13, no. 3 (summer 1985): 14; Wolfpen Poems.
“Hunter.” Kentucky Poetry Review 14, no. 1 (winter-spring 1978): 4; River of Earth; Wolfpen Poems.
“I Shall Go Singing.” Arcadian Life 32 (Feb. 1938): 1.
“I Was Born Humble” [“Death in the Forest”]. Saturday Review of Literature 14, no. 26 (24 Oct. 1936): 4; Miami Daily News, 8 Aug. 1937; Louisville Courier-Journal, 27 Jun. 1937, 7; Lincoln Herald [Lincoln Memorial University publication] 41 (Oct. 1938): 10; Chattahoochee Valley Times, 31 Jan. 1940, 4; Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, 11 Feb. 1940, section 1, p. 6; Hounds on the Mountain; Wolfpen Poems.
“In My Dreaming.” Kentucky Poetry Review 23, no. 2 (summer/fall 1987): 48.
“Infare” [“Mountain Infare”]. Poetry 47, no. 1 (Oct. 1935): 13; Hounds on the Mountain; Wolfpen Poems.
“Interval.” The Skyline [Colorado newspaper], 1936, 1.
“Journey Beyond the Hills.” Yale Review 26, no. 1 (autumn 1936): 133; Louisville Courier-Journal, 8 Nov. 1936, 4; Hounds on the Mountain; Appalachian Heritage 13, no. 3 (summer 1985): 19; Wolfpen Poems.
“Knife Trader.” Appalachian Heritage 18, no. 3 (summer 1990): 9.
“Lamp.” Mountain Life and Work 45, no. 4 (Apr. 1969): 20; Appalachian Heritage 1, no. 1 (winter 1973): 45; Appalachian Heritage 13, no. 3 (summer 1985): 18; River of Earth; Wolfpen Poems.
“Leap, Minnows, Leap.” Saturday Review of Literature 17, no. 16 (12 Feb. 1938): 5; Bread Loaf Anthology; Louisville Courier-Journal, 1 May 1938, 7; Browning, Kentucky Authors; Stewart, Dark Unsleeping Land; Appalachian Heritage 13, no. 3 (summer 1985): 12; Wolfpen Poems.
“Lizard.” Approaches 7, no. 2 (winter/spring 1971): 5; Wolfpen Poems.
“Madly to Learn.” New Letters 51, no. 2 (winter 1984-85): 38-39.
“Man O’ War” [“Stallion”]. New Grounds [Sue Bennett College publication], 21; Approaches 5, no. 3 (May 1969): 8.
“Man Singing to Himself, A” [“Ballad”]. New York Times, 27 Jul. 1937, 20; Appalachian Heritage 11, no. 3 (summer 1983): 3; Wolfpen Poems.
“Mine Is a Wide Estate.” Appalachian Heritage 25, no. 2 (spring 1997): 3.
“Morning: Dead Mare Branch” [“Morning on the Hills,” “Morning”]. Better Home 4, no. 2 (Apr.-May-Jun. 1938): 15; River of Earth; Wolfpen Poems.
“Mountain Fox Hunt” [“Fox Hunt”]. Poetry 47, no. 1 (Oct. 1935): 12; Literary Digest 120, no. 14 (5 Oct. 1935): 25; Hounds on the Mountain; Wolfpen Poems.
“Mountain Men Are Free.” Arcadian Life 36 (Sep.-Oct. 1938): 27; Fantasy 6, no. 1 (1938): 28.
“Mrs. Lloyd, Her Rag Sale.” Appalachian Heritage 23, no. 2 (spring 1995): 11.
“My Aunt Carrie.” [“Aunt Carrie”]. Appalachian Heritage 25, no. 2 (spring 1997): 27.
“My Days” [“In Retrospect”]. Appalachian Heritage 23, no. 3
(summer 1995): 3.
“Night in the Coal Camps.” Hounds on the Mountain; Wolfpen Poems; Higgs, Appalachia Inside Out, Volume 1.
“Nixie Middleton.” Buffalo [N.Y.] Times, 20 Jun. 1937, 105; Hounds on the Mountain; Appalachian Heritage 13, no. 3 (summer 1985): 19; Wolfpen Poems.
“Now Has Day Come” [“Sun-Ball on the Mountain”]. North Georgia Review 2, no. 2 (summer 1937): 6; White, From the Mountains; Twigs 11, no. 1 (fall 1974): 105; River of Earth; Appalachian Heritage 13, no. 3 (summer 1985): 16; Wolfpen Poems.
“Of Concern.” The American Voice 27 (1992): 3.
“Of the Faithful.” Appalachian Heritage 18, no. 3 (summer 1990): 9.
“Of the Wild Man.” The Wild Man: Touchstone, no. 6 (autumn 1978): n.p.; River of Earth; Wolfpen Poems.
“On Being Drafted into the U.S. Army from My Log Home on Wolfpen Creek in March 1942.” Approaches 8, no. 2 (spring 1972): 6; Wolfpen Poems.
“On Buckhorn Creek” [“Buckhorn Creek”]. Hounds on the Mountain; Wolfpen Poems.
“On Double Creek.” Providence [R.I.] Star-Tribune, Jun. 22, 1937; Hounds on the Mountain; Wolfpen Poems.
“On Redbird Creek” [“Redbird Creek”]. Sewanee Review 45, no. 1 (Jan.-Mar. 1937): 23; Louisville Courier-Journal, 14 Mar. 1937, 9; Boston Evening Transcript, 17 Jul. 1937, 2; Hounds on the Mountain; Wolfpen Poems.
“On the Passing of My Brother Alfred” [“On the Passing of My Good Friend John”]. Kentucky Poetry Review 20, no. 2 (fall 1984): 108; Appalachian Heritage 23, no. 1 (winter 1995): 3.
“On Troublesome Creek” [“Troublesome Creek”]. Sewanee Review 44, no. 2 (Apr.-Jun. 1936): 163; Miami Daily News, 8 Aug. 1937; Hounds on the Mountain; Wolfpen Poems.
“Passenger Pigeons.” New York Times, 5 Feb. 1936, 18; Lexington Herald, 26 May 1936, 12; Hounds on the Mountain; Wolfpen Poems.
“Passing of a County Sheriff” [“Death of a County Sheriff”]. North Georgia Review 5, no. 2 (summer 1940): 6; Mountain Life and Work 44, no. 6 (Jul. 1968): 17; White, From the Mountains; Twigs 11, no. 1 (fall 1974): 105; River of Earth; Appalachian Heritage 13, no. 3 (summer 1985): 20; Wolfpen Poems.
“Pattern for Death.” Nation 144, no. 1 (2 Jan. 1937): 22; Miami Daily News, 8 Aug. 1937; Hounds on the Mountain; Appalachian Heritage 13, no. 3 (summer 1985): 13; Wolfpen Poems; Francisco, The South in Perspective.
