Nikky Finney Wins National Book Award (and some other news)

If you know me on Facebook, you know that even though I am far away from Kentucky now, I am ecstatic over Nikky Finney's recent winning of the National Book Award for poetry (for Head Off and Split). She is a Kentucky resident, a professor at the University of Kentucky, and a founding member of the Affrilachian Poets. Below is a video of the award ceremony from LexGo. The award announcement for poetry starts at about 12:30. At about 17:00 Finney gives her acceptance poem/speech.





I first heard Nikky Finney when I was in high school. One of my writing mentors, Judy Milford, had lent me some books, including a copy of Finney's Rice, so that I could read some Kentucky poets in preparation for Kentucky's Governor's School for the Arts. When Nikky Finney showed up at our GSA class, I asked her to sign Judy's book as a thank you.

This story segues nicely into some other (slightly more nepotistic) accomplishments I've been meaning to acknowledge.

Judy Milford now has a book of poetry out: Surfacing (Finishing Line Press)—an exploration of grief and faith in the everyday. I've been waiting a long time for this book.

And my aunt, Rachel Clark, created the cover art and designed the book cover for the recently released Circle of Law (Xlibris) by Lia London—a Young Adult fantasy adventure. (I really should get a picture of the back cover on here too, so you can see her awesome cityscape.)

Congrats all around!


Also, my artist sister and I have started a joint Tumblr account:  Magical Bipolar Sofa. We'll hopefully be putting some of our own work up there, but it's mainly a catch-all for reblogging things we find interesting, amusing, or wonderful, but that don't fit our individual blogs. In other words, it's awfully strange. I don't know whether to recommend that you click the link or that you stay very far away.


(Note: The second book image I stole from my aunt.)

R.I.P.: James Baker Hall (also Some Bad Excuses and a Plotness Story)

So I thought I was going to write another blog post last week, but both my internet and my brain went down (electrical problems and a bad flu/cold). If I wanted to sound really pathetic, I would add that the dishwasher also went out, but it's not as a good an excuse.

Over the weekend, I found out that former Kentucky Poet Laureate James Baker Hall passed away.

Besides being Poet Laureate of his home state, he won numerous awards, including a Pushcart Prize, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and an O. Henry Prize. Hall wrote fiction, poetry, and was a professional photographer. He was married to novelist Mary Ann Taylor-Hall.

I know that among the many people who will feel Hall's loss are his students. I never studied under him, but I was fortunate enough to hear Hall read at my local library when he was making his Poet Laureate circuit. And that, by itself, was an education.

On the way to the reading, I ran into an older woman from my poetry group. She asked me what I thought about James Baker Hall. I made some innocuous remark about liking his work (I didn't mention the poems I couldn't understand), and she replied, "Well, I think he's a fox. A silver fox." I swear, if she knew how to growl, she would have.

I must have stepped back because she added, "That's something you'll understand when you reach my age."

It was a good reading. I wish my memory of it was clearer. I'm horrible at describing voices, but I know Hall's was distinctive, sort of deep and wry and gravelly. His head was round and balding, but his eyebrows were bushy and expressive and accented the sharp brightness of his eyes.

Most of the audience was silver-headed. Afterwards, when I asked Hall to sign my copy of Mother on the Other Side of the World, he squinted at me and said, "Do you write poetry?" At the time, I thought this was some kind of shaman-like poet's intuition. (Now I realize that I had been so young and eager that this was the obvious question to ask.)

"Yes," I confessed.

"Is it any good?" He raised one of those expressive eyebrows.

"I don't know. Maybe." (How do you answer a question like that?)

Then he smiled and signed my book and that was the end of that. I had thought I would be able attend another reading by Hall some time in the future, buy another book, get it signed as well, and maybe by that point I would have published enough poetry to have answered his question.

Obviously, that's not going to happen now.

Even by relative strangers in the dusty corners of poetry-writing, you are missed, Mr. Hall. You Silver Fox.

(Image from the University of Kentucky.)

Wishing You a Belated Happy Kentucky Writers' Day

I wanted to write a post for Kentucky Writers' Day (April 24th), but computer problems and personal insanities kept me occupied.

I also wanted to add an amendment to my previous comment about former Poet Laureates of Kentucky, and note that it's a little difficult to find information on some Poet Laureates, particularly from early on, when the appointment process was a bit more sporadic.

I remember hearing James Baker Hall describe the early appointment process (and I paraphrase): Sometimes a member of the General Assembly would say, "So-and-so down in such-and-such holler writes some poems. Let's make her Poet Laureate of Kentucky." And the Assembly would vote for this, and the poet was happy, and the member was happy because he'd made his constituents happy. But beyond this the benefits for Kentucky and literature were relatively small.

So, when I said that as far as I know, former Poet Laureates of Kentucky wrote poetry, well, I only know back so far. But certainly ever since the Kentucky Arts Council has been involved in the process, Poet Laureates in Kentucky (until now) have written poetry.

On to newer news: I was very happy to hear that the crowd for Gurney Norman's April 24th induction ceremony overwhelmed the Capitol Rotunda. There aren't a lot of literary events that require more seating than is available. So Huzzah! for auspicious beginnings!

Gurney Norman: New Kentucky Poet Laureate

National Poetry Month seems like the perfect time to formerly induct a new state Poet Laureate, and on Friday (April 24th) Gurney Norman will officially take over from Jane Gentry Vance. After receiving the news, my first thought was Oh! I didn't know Gurney Norman wrote poetry. How wonderful!

Well, he hasn't published any poetry. The official Kentucky website says, "The word 'poet' in the position's title is interpreted in its broadest sense to include persons whose accomplishments are in any literary form." The dictionary allows for this broad use of the word poet. But the U.S. Poet Laureate always falls under the narrower definition and writes poetry, and as far as I can tell, all of Kentucky's past Poet Laureates wrote poetry. This seems a little funny to me.

Part of me is peeved because it's not as if Kentucky's run out of great (poetry-writing) poets on whom the Kentucky Arts Council/governor could bestow this honor. And part me is tickled by imagining the Kentucky Arts Council watching Gurney Norman's long and acclaimed career and waiting and waiting for him to write a volume of poetry until, finally, someone exclaims, "Darn it all! We have to get Gurney Norman for Poet Laureate before the man dies on us."

I've only read Norman's Kinfolks (so far), but his history of prose achievement and promoting literature in Kentucky (and Kentucky in literature) is certainly worth honoring. A major part of the job of Kentucky Poet Laureate is to advance reading and writing in the Commonwealth, and in that sense, Gurney Norman is a perfect fit. I won't be able to attend the ceremony in Frankfort, but I hope our new Poet Laureate makes it down to my end of the state. I also hope that he pays special attention to the important, but much neglected, role of Kentucky poetry.

Kentucky Authors and Poets

After my post on Tuesday, I felt that I ought to give writers from my home state props. So here, in no particular order and subject to change, are my current favorite books by Kentucky writers:



Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry. The closest you'll ever come to reading a river.




Buffalo Dance: The Journey of York poems by Frank X Walker. The story of York, William Clark's slave and a member of the Lewis and Clark expedition, told through York's own, beautifully imagined, voice.



The Coal Tattoo by Silas House. The sisters in this novel are an Applachian Sense and Sensibility pairing, but the story is House's own and very Kentuckian: relationships lost, broken, and mended; drinking; baptism; coal; land rights; and religion.



The Mother on the Other Side of the World: Poems by James Baker Hall. I have a feeling, from the readings I've been to, that anything by this former Poet Laureate of Kentucky is good poetry; this just happens to be the book I have right now.



The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver. I'm sad that I haven't read more by Kingsolver because the characters in this novel are so well-drawn. I know that Kingsolver is no longer in Kentucky, but there's no denying the Kentucky influence here.