East Tennessee State University Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University Electronic Theses and Dissertations Student Works 5-2020 The Powerful Presence of Dams in Appalachian Poetry Zoe Hester East Tennessee State University Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.etsu.edu/etd Part of the Appalachian Studies Commons, Literature in English, North America Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Hester, Zoe, "The Powerful Presence of Dams in Appalachian Poetry" (2020). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 3683. https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/3683 This Thesis - Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Works at Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Powerful Presence of Dams in Appalachian Poetry ________________________ A thesis presented to the faculty of the Department of Literature and Language at East Tennessee State University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts in English _____________________ By Zoë Hester May 2020 _____________________ Dr. Thomas Alan Holmes, Chair Dr. Kevin O’Donnell Dr. Chelsea Wessels Keywords: Appalachia, TVA, Dam, Power, Tennessee, North Carolina, Poetry ABSTRACT The Powerful Presence of Dams in Appalachian Poetry By Zoë Hester Contemporary Appalachian poetry offers a lens through which we can see the immense impact that the Tennessee Valley Authority has had in Appalachia. In this thesis, I explore the powerful presence of dams in Appalachian poetry by analyzing three poems. Jesse Graves’s “The Road into the Lake” centers on personal and familial loss, Jackson Wheeler’s “The TVA Built a Dam” mourns the loss of communities, and Rose McLarney’s “Imminent Domain” focuses on the ecological destruction that has occurred in Appalachia and around the globe as the result of the construction of TVA dams. Ultimately, all three poems serve as eulogies of time, land, and lives that have been stolen, offering warnings against further ecological and societal desecration. 2 DEDICATION To all of the people who have lost their homes to rising waters 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS A huge thank you to the people who helped me complete this project: to Dr. O’Donnell and Dr. Wessels, thank you for tackling this project with me and for all of your valuable feedback and time. To Dr. Holmes, thank you for speaking with me and offering your feedback a multitude of times. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................... 2 DEDICATION ............................................................................................................................... 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .............................................................................................................. 4 1. INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................... 6 What is Appalachian Poetry? ............................................................................................. 6 A Brief History of the TVA ............................................................................................... 6 Introduction of the Poems ................................................................................................ 12 A Personal Note on Norris, Tennessee, and Appalachia .................................................. 13 A Note on Mankind .......................................................................................................... 18 2. THE TVA AND SEVERANCE FROM PERSONAL HISTORY IN JESSE GRAVES’S “THE ROAD INTO THE LAKE” ........................................................................................... 19 3. THE DISPLACEMENT OF PLACES IN JACKSON WHEELER’S “THE TVA BUILT A DAM” ...................................................................................................................................... 28 4. TO DAMN OR NOT TO DAM: THE PRESERVATION AND DESECRATION OF PARADISE IN ROSE MCLARNEY’S “IMMINENT DOMAIN” ........................................ 37 5. CONCLUSIONS ...................................................................................................................... 46 WORKS CITED ........................................................................................................................... 50 APPENDICES .............................................................................................................................. 54 Appendix A: Running List of Appalachian Poets that have Written about Dams and the TVA .................................................................................................................................. 54 VITA ............................................................................................................................................ 55 5 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION What is Appalachian Poetry? To answer this question, we first need to answer another one: what is Appalachia? This question has puzzled historians, sociologists, and writers for centuries. In her book What You Are Getting Wrong about Appalachia, Elizabeth Catte writes, “Appalachia is, often simultaneously, a political construction, a vast geographic region, and a spot that occupies an unparalleled place in our cultural imagination,” but that “[m]aintaining flexible definitions of Appalachia is appropriate” because of the tensions among these elements (Catte 10, 67). It is difficult to define Appalachia, but it is much easier to define what it is not. Appalachia is not inhabited only by poor hillbillies who speak broken or outdated English. It is not a place where everyone is straight, white, racist, and Baptist. It is not some “other America”; Appalachia is America. Its people share the same struggles as other Americans. However, the culture of Appalachia is unique in many ways, and Appalachian history, while similar to that of other places oppressed by capitalism, is unique as well. This Appalachian identity and history help to define the region, however flexibly, as well as defining its artforms. The Tennessee Valley Authority influences the way poets perceive and write about the region, just as it has immensely altered the history of Appalachia. A Brief History of the TVA The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) was created during the Roosevelt administration in 1933. Its mission was [t]o improve the navigability and to provide for the flood control of the Tennessee River; to provide for reforestation and the proper use of marginal lands in the Tennessee Valley; 6 to provide for the agricultural and industrial development of said valley; to provide for the national defense by the creation of a corporation for the operation of Government properties at and near Muscle Shoals in the State of Alabama, and for other purposes. (Tennessee Valley Authority Act) The TVA was established with the intention of reducing the impact of the Great Depression in southern Appalachia, “where it was tasked with improving the quality of life in the region” (“Our History”). In the Tennessee Blue Book’s early twentieth century history of Tennessee, the office of the Tennessee Secretary of State credits the persistence of Nebraska U.S. Senator George Norris with the TVA’s creation; the first TVA dam would later be named after the Senator (Hargett 531). In The Heartland Series’ documentary For the Greater Good: Norris Dam at 80, Senator Norris is presented as an anti-capitalist progressive, Norris was a liberal republican from Nebraska, and he supported the ideals of President Franklin Roosevelt. He was decidedly anti-big business, which also dove tailed with much of Roosevelts’ New Deal. The creation of TVA was a direct result of Senator Norris’s legislative action to prevent Henry Ford from leasing an unfinished federal dam and two nitrate plants on the Tennessee River in Alabama. Norris didn’t trust Ford or any plan by the private sector. Still, he wanted the dam and the nitrate plants operational. (For the Greater Good: Norris Dam at 80) The TVA was a progressive project for its time, and as part of FDR’s New Deal, was in fact considered too socialist by many Americans. In the same documentary, it is stated that “. from the start, [the TVA] encountered resistance. Many believed the government, by forming TVA, was forcing out private business. Political opponents fought tooth and nail against what they believed to be socialism” (For the Greater Good: Norris Dam at 80). Despite this resistance, 7 “Norris’s determination combined with Roosevelt’s New Deal goals of government operated social and jobs programs helped create the TVA Act that passed to Congress” (For the Greater Good: Norris Dam at 80). The TVA initially sought to fulfil its purpose of completely developing the Tennessee River System for the greater good “by building hydroelectric dams (20 between 1933 and 1951) and several coal-fired power plants to produce electricity” (Hargett 531). The TVA intended to improve the quality of life in lower Appalachia by powering the region with hydroelectricity; [i]nexpensive and abundant electrical power was the main benefit that TVA brought to Tennessee, particularly in rural areas that previously did not have electrical service. TVA electrified some 60,000 farm