Stories of things rural and small town….
Urban-edge poems….
Things that don’t normally mix on stage.

Kevin Stewart, Vandalia Press author of the story collection “The Way Things Always Happen Here,” and John Hennessy, poet of “Bridge and Tunnel” from Turning Point Books, appeared on stage in Mississippi earlier this month.

I’m fascinated that Hennessy told clarionledger.com he’s working on some poems about iconic women, including Squeaky Fromme (taking a cue from one of Stewart’s stories).

“Americans love poetry, pay huge sums of money for it, and listen to it constantly. Of course, I’m talking about song, because poetry is really song. Rock ‘n’ roll, ballad, and all other forms of song are really part of the sphere that, since ancient times, has been what poetry is.”

– Gary Snyder, East West Journal, 1977

Kenneth Rexroth said wedding poetry to music “takes the poet out of the bookish, academic world and forces him to compete with ‘acrobats, trained dogs, and Singer’s Midgets,’ as they used to say in the days of vaudeville.”

– liner notes for the 1959 record “Poetry and Jazz at the Blackhawk”

In this spirit, amble on down to the Festival of the Rivers, Hinton, W.Va., September 1-2, 2007, and see if you don’t find yourself surrounded by poetry of one sort or another. It’s an international event, it’s free and includes a showcase of musical winners including David LaFleur, with his mixture of folk, blues, and bluegrass, Lady D on her blues journey, and “Spiritual Warrior” Shayar, with the reggae he’s taken all over the world.

On Saturday from 11 to noon, Tom Hartwell will teach a cigar box guitar building class. For more info about the class, you can e-mail Fred Long at hinton1000@aol.com.

You might even see Sandstone Falls out in that neck of the woods.

Take W.Va. Turnpike exit 139 toward WV-20/Sandstone/Hinton … well, Google it, and print out a map if you need one.

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Doug Van Gundy reads three poems from his debut book, “A Life Above Water,” published earlier this year by Red Hen Press.

Van Gundy also shares his thoughts about the personal focus of poetry, how it’s nourished by the worlds of science and spirit. He talks about mountain culture, his life and music, and what makes a good teacher. Listening to him talk, we get a sense of the great richness and depth of his experience.

Perhaps nobody has capsulized Van Gundy’s background better than the Augusta Heritage Center of Davis and Elkins College when presenting him as one of their featured teachers this summer:

“Doug Van Gundy has been an elephant keeper, a copywriter, a country radio disk jockey, a letterpress operator, an arts administrator. He has also taught composition to inmates and college freshmen, helped high school teachers integrate writing into their classrooms, led creative writing weekends for university students and has worked with poets from age 5 to 75. He earned his M.F.A. in poetry from Goddard College. His work has been published in numerous regional literary magazines and has won prizes in both the Eve of Saint Agnes and Lullwater Review competitions. His poems have been included in the anthology ‘Wild Sweet Notes: Fifty Years of West Virginia Poetry.’ Doug is also a well-known fiddler and banjo player, and he frequently performs and teaches old-time music as half of the duo Born Old.”

Van Gundy also plans to appear at the W.Va. Book Festival in October. He says he’ll bring some copies of his book.

Enjoy.

Try this YouTube video of a poem by James Wright. Unbeknownst to him, Wright is linked, spiritually at least, to West Virginia poet Doug Van Gundy who will read three of his own poems on this blog as soon as I can get the recording ready.  Van Gundy’s first book, “A Life Above Water,” came out this year, and in our conversation he talked of his poetic kinship to Wright.  The thumbnail photo of Wright shown here is what he looked like in 1960.

You know, poetry has been called wasted breath, but it is a gift, and it’s beautiful and amazing what people will do to pass it on over lifetimes and into other lifetimes. A gift.

About the African American Cultural & Heritage Festival this past weekend in downtown Charles Town, W.Va.. . . . I’m sorry I missed it — a four-day event sponsored by the West Virginia chapter of the NAACP.   The drums of it, the parade, the music, The Orioles and the hip-hop and dance of it! 

I heard there was a Youth Extravaganza on Friday, and that youth from the tri-state area performed music and poetry.

Click here for a clip of part of the parade.

I grew up on a farm in Pleasants County.

I left there and lived in Morgantown for many years and then even more years now in Charleston and South Charleston…. It seems I’ve been everywhere in West Virginia, saturated wth everything West Virginia all my life. For all this, I am fascinated by any writing or audio by West Virginia’s poet laureate, Irene McKinney. She is not just a regional poet, though. She transcends that. To me, her  poems crackle with energy. I think they would if I were from anywhere.

I see that Irene McKinney is beginning a series of essays. Listen to one called “Community” on West Virginia Public Broadcasting.

Watch for her at the West Virginia Book Festival this fall at the Charleston Civic Center. 

In advance, read up on her online at poets.org  and at the Annie Merner Pfeiffer Library at West Virginia Wesleyan College.  Dip into a book she edited not so long ago: “Backcountry: Contemporary Writing in West Virginia.”

You’ll find a nice sampling of her poetry in “Backcountry,” along with work by Maggie Anderson, Mary Lee Settle, Mark DeFoe, Pinckney Benedict, Tom Andrews, Lisa Koger, Louise McNeill, Meredith Sue Willis, Timothy Russell, Lee Maynard, Llewellyn McKernan, Denise Giardina,  Davis Grubb, A.E. Stringer, Richard Currey, John McKernan, Breece D’j Pancake, Victor Depta, Ann Pancake, Henry Louis Gates Jr., and Jayne Anne Phillips.

I have a special place in my heart for the poetry journal Trellis One and Trellis Two she edited with Winston Fuller and Maggie Anderson.
 

More books by Irene McKinney:
Vivid Companion: Poems
Six O’Clock Mine Report 
Quick Fire and Slow Fire: Poems 
The Girl With the Stone in Her Lap 
 

We don’t often enough hear sports and poetry mentioned in the same breath.

Consider the life of Skip Prosser, who died last Thursday of an apparent heart attack at age 56.

He spent 21 years as a collegiate basketball coach. More than most coaches, he encouraged his players to be good students. He was known for his keen intellect and his sense of humor.

In a Baltimore Sun story of remembrance about Prosser, John Boylan, the athletic director at Loyola, said that Prosser was a “renaissance man coaching basketball.”

Stories of Prosser’s death and subsequent reflections about his career were featured on sports fronts around the world. As for his being mentioned here, he had the poetry going for him, and he had West Virginia ties.

Born in Pittsburgh, he earned a graduate degree from WVU. His first coaching assignments were at West Virginia high schools — Linsly Academy in Wheeling for two seasons and five seasons at Wheeling Central. What some here in West Virginia and elsewhere might remember about him is that he was probably one of the best-read coaches ever.

According to David Glenn of ACCSports.com, Prosser “particularly seemed to enjoy quoting Geoffrey Chaucer, William Wordsworth or the man he liked to call ‘Billy Shakespeare.’ ” He would quote people like Henry David Thoreau or Friedrich Nietzsche to make a point or to inspire his players.

One of Prosser’s favorite Chaucer quotes, Glenn said, reflected the coach’s priority — that of a teacher’s perspective:
“Seeke out ye goode in everie man, and speke of alle the beste ye can; then wil alle men speke wel of thee and say how kynde of hearte ye bee.”

Rest in peace, Skip Prosser — one in whom the roles of teacher and coach coalesced admirably.