The Journal of Kentucky Studies Volume Twenty-seven September 2010 September Twenty-seven Volume The Journal of Kentucky Studies James Baker Hall Self Portrait The Journal of Kentucky Studies Editor Gary Walton Northern Kentucky University y Contributors The Journal welcomes articles on any theme—art, commentary, critical essays, history, literary criticism, short fiction, and poetry. Black and white photography is also accepted. Subject matter is not restricted to Kentucky. All manuscripts should follow the University of Chicago Manual of Style, be double-spaced, and be submitted in triplicate with S.A.S.E. Please include e-mail address. The Journal is published yearly by the Northern Kentucky University Department of English. Statements of fact and opinion are made on the responsibility of the authors alone. All articles and other correspondence should be sent to: Northern Kentucky University, Gary Walton, Editor, The Journal of Kentucky Studies, Department of English, Nunn Drive, Highland Heights, Kentucky 41099. Phone (859) 572-5418. E-Mail: [email protected] Subscriptions Subscriptions are $5.00 per issue, pre-paid. Send checks or money orders to: Gary Walton, Editor, The Journal of Kentucky Studies, Department of English, Northern Kentucky University, Nunn Drive, Highland Heights, Kentucky 41099. Cover Photo Danny Miller on a visit ot James Still’s home on Dead Mare Brance, 1979. White Horse With Another Photographs courtesy of James Baker Hall ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ Northern Kentucky University © 2010 Northern Kentucky University ISSN 8755-4208 This publication was prepared by Northern Kentucky University and printed with state funds (KRS 57.375). Northern Kentucky University does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, disability, age, religion, marital status, sexual orientation or veteran status in training activities or employment. Educational programs or activities are set forth in accordance with Title IX, Title VI, Title VII, ADA and Section 504. For more information, please contact the Office of Legal Affairs & General Counsel, Lucas Administrative Center 824, Nunn Drive, Highland Heights, KY 41099, which has been designated to coordinate the school’s efforts to comply with the aforementioned regulations. 14114 The Journal of Kentucky Studies Acknowledgments ❖ The editors wish to express thanks to Northern Kentucky University for the funding of this journal and for the released time for its editing. Special thanks to Northern Kentucky University for funds to print the cover in color. The editors would like to thank all of the contributors to the James Baker Hall Memorial Section, in particular Mary Ann Taylor-Hall and Sarah Wylie A. VanMeter. Also thanks to Debbie Thomayer and the University of Cincinnati Raymond Walters College for clerical support. “The Approaching Sky,” “Time” and “Spring” from The Total Light Process: New and Collected Poems, 2004, by James Baker Hall, used with permission of the University Press of Kentucky. “That First Kite,” “The Maps,” “In the Middle” (from the “Wedding Rings” sequence), “Old Places,” and “Organdy Curtains, Window, South Bank of the Ohio” from Stopping on the Edge to Wave, 1988, by James Baker Hall, used with permission of Wesleyan University Press. “The Family of Man Resides in the House of Philosophy” from Getting It On Up to the Brag, 1975, and Fast Signing Mute, 1992, by James Baker Hall, used with permission of Larkspur Press. “The Fox” from The Mother on the Other Side of the World, 1999, by James Baker Hall, used with permission of Sarabande Books. Photographs and other materials by James Baker Hall, used with permission of the The James Baker Hall Archive, Sarah Wylie A. VanMeter, executor, and Mary Ann Taylor-Hall. “For the Year” from Travels by W. S. Merwin, used with permission of the author. “A Flask of This” from Dividing Ridge by Mary Ann Taylor-Hall, used with permission of Larkspur Press. Dedicated to Danny L. Miller Contributors ❖ Wendell Berry is an author of novels, short stories, poems, and essays. His books of fiction include Andy Catlett: Early Travels (Shoemaker & Hoard, 2006); his nonfiction books include The Way of Ignorance and Other Essays, (Shoemaker & Hoard, 2005). His latest book of poems is Leavings (2009). Wendell is also a farmer in Port Royal, Kentucky. Todd Davis teaches creative writing, environmental studies, and American literature at Penn State University’s Altoona College and in the MFA program at Penn State University Park. He is the author of three books of poems— The Least of These (Michigan State UP, 2010), Some Heaven (Michigan State UP, 2007), and Ripe (Bottom Dog Press, 2002)—as well as co-editor of Making Poems (State U of New York P, 2010). His poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, have won the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize, and have appeared recently in such journals and magazines as Shenandoah, Sou’wester, West Branch, River Styx, and Poetry East. His nonfiction has appeared in Gray’s Sporting Journal, Review Revue, and The Bloomsbury Review. Carrie Green earned her MFA at McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana. She received a 2005-2006 Artist Fellowship from the Louisiana Division of the Arts and a 2009 Individual Artist Professional Development Grant from the Kentucky Arts Council to attend the Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. Her poems have appeared in Gulf Stream and ABZ: A Poetry Magazine. Katerina Sloykova-Klemer is the author of the bilingual poetry book, The Air around the Butterfly (Fakel Express, 2009), and the English language chapbook, The Most (Finishing Line Press, 2010). Her poems have been published in the US and Europe, including The Louisville Review, Margie, Adirondack Review and others. Katerina is the founder and leader of poetry and prose groups in Lexington, Kentucky. She serves as Deputy Editor in Chief of the English language edition of the online magazine Public Republic and hosts Accents—a Radio Show for Literature and Culture. Turner Cassity died in 2009. His most recent books were The Destructive Element: New and Selected Poems (Ohio UP, 1998), Devil & Islands (Ohio UP, 2007), and Under Two Flags (Scienter Press, 2009). Bobbi Dawn Rightmyer is a poet and freelance writer from Harrodsburg, Kentucky. For the past 15 years, she has had a monthly essay column in Mercer’s Magazine, and for the past two years, she has had a weekly book review column in The Harrodsburg Herald. She has had three essays recently published in the book, The Women of Mercer County, and she has five poems and one essay to be published in the upcomingSpeaking Out, Volume II. She was recently an honorable mention in a contest from New Southerner Magazine and her essay will appear in the spring edition and the fall anthology. Phillip Howerton is an English instructor at North Arkansas College in Harrison and is co-editor of Cave Region Review, a regional journal of literary and visual art. His poetry has appeared in a variety of publications, such as Potpourri, Modern Haiku, American Tanka, The Mid-America Poetry Review, The Christian Science Monitor, and The Chain Journal and is forthcoming in The Hurricane Review, The Foliate Oak, and Plainsongs. Ron Watson has had poems appear in the New Mexico Humanities Review, South Dakota Review, and Zone 3, among others. Chapbook publications include My Name Ain’t Bud (Pygmy Forest Press, 1991); Pagan Faith (Nightshade Press, 1992); Counting Down the Days (Pudding House Press, 1994); and A Sacred Heart (Redneck Press, 1994). He is a past recipient of an Al Smith Fellowship for Poetry, awarded by the Kentucky Arts Council, and lives in Madisonville, Kentucky, where he serves as editor for The Mad Hatter, an international journal of creativity for pre-college students, and where he works as a resource teacher for the Hopkins County Schools. Matthew Haughton was born in Boulder Colorado. Early in his life, his family returned to eastern Kentucky where his lineage stretches back over a century in the region. A graduate of the University of Kentucky, his poetry has appeared in Kentucky Monthly Magazine, Still: The Journal, and The Heartland Review. Haughton works as an artist and educator in Lexington KY. Rebecca Gayle Howell is a poet, translator, and documentarian. Her poems and translations have appeared in or are forthcoming in The Massachusetts Review, Ecotone, Connotation, and The Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, and her documentary work had been collected in Plundering Appalachia (EarthWise, 2009) and in Arwen Donahue’s This is Home Now: Kentucky’s Holocaust Survivors Speak (UP of Kentucky, 2009). She is also the author of The Hatchet Buddha a chapbook by Larkspur Press. She teaches the BFA program at Morehead State University and is an incoming fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA. Frederick Smock is chairman of the English Department at Bellarmine University, in Louisville. His poems have appeared in The Hudson Review, The Iowa Review, and many others. His new book is The Blue Hour (Larkspur Press). Travis Du Priest, a native of Virginia, attended the University of Richmond and received a Ph.D. in 17th century English Literature from the University of Kentucky, where he also studied letterpress printing with master printer Carolyn Hammer. His articles on Eudora Welty and Elizabeth Maddox Roberts, as well as his own creative short fiction, have appeared in the Journal of Kentucky Studies. He has published four chapbooks of poetry and two scholarly works on 17th century writers and has been a featured poet in the Kentucky Poetry Review. In 2007, he was the inaugural Clay Lancaster Residential Fellow, writing at “Warwick” on the Kentucky River near Salvisa. He is currently working on book on his Huguenot ancestors and on a series of poems entitled “Poetic Post Scripts.” He lives with his wife, also a UK graduate, in Racine, Wisconsin, with their dog Buster.