There are little pieces of paper in piles on the tables. In a flash I have written ‘I’m afraid my daughter will never fully recover’ before I hear the first prompt: name things you were afraid of as a child. Other prompts follow- fears around identity, the body, family, children, the outdoors, society, the world, aging. On and on I reach for the tiny slips of paper-
-making a mistake, my mother dying, running into my father in airports, diving, rollercoasters, brain aneurysms, having to work at real jobs until I die, fascism, the death of democracy, my six decades of journals ending up in a trash heap unread, my daughter never being able to make it on her own, asking for help, going to war with our former allies, becoming a dictatorship, seeing him again, not seeing him again, ending up in the Bee Gees/Donna Summers/Lynyrd Skynyrd/Journey nursing home instead of The Clash/Joni Mitchell/Talking Heads/Kate Bush nursing home, my daughter being picked up by ICE, never being loved again, my house falling apart, the increasing decline of my mother, the killing of our planet, never having enough money no matter how many jobs I have, my country committing genocide-
on and on I list and the weight is excruciating. I see myself bursting with fear, I am choking on it as I try to mash it down down down. No wonder I once found relief for a minute in alcohol. No wonder everything inside me just hurts and I am paralyzed and procrastinating, unable to deal with simple things like making an appointment to get my taxes done or go to the doctor. No wonder I am so very heavy, staggering under the load I carry, the load I don’t know how to set down. And I see everyone else around this table, around our country, staggering under the load too. The world’s epitaph reads Death by Deferred Maintenance.
So there they all are, all these little pieces of big fears. How can I transform them? That is the crux of everything, isn’t it. The fears exist I can live with them only through transformation.
I will paste them onto a kite and fly them high high high in the sky- I see it climb and climb the spool unreeling too quickly the end of the string untied Whoosh! Off it sails like the kite I flew alone on the lakefront almost fifty years ago Whoosh! Torn from my hands in only seconds of flight sailing high up and over all eight lanes of Lakeshore Drive.
Untethered a kite cannot fly for long, it takes one thin string holding it to earth for it to soar. Set free, it only careens without direction until it loses heart and crashes to the ground- Must I keep hold of the string?
Somehow it made it better, seeing it in the sky instead of crumpled on a sidewalk on the other side of traffic I cannot cross.
The topic is happiness. Can you write about it?
Can you name what brings you comfort? What kindles joy? What makes you feel playful? What do you look forward to? When do you feel most connected to the divine? When do you feel validation? What do you want to remember on your death bed? Let us remember these things. The hand reaches gladly for the tiny slips of paper-
-feeding the birds, hearing an owl at dusk, getting a glimpse of a fox, building a fire, someone telling me out of the blue that something I wrote stayed with them, seeing happiness and pride on the faces of children at curtain call, random hugs in the hallways, building a fire, my bed, writing before dawn in the Little Wood, the vision of Mitch McConnell in Bruegel’s Hell being sodomized by a fish, wonder tales, the company of the young, planting things, polar expeditions, finishing a good book, finishing a mediocre book, kittens and puppies, knowing Hindman is there whether I am or not, snow days, making discoveries, making art, soaking in a tub by candlelight, floating on a lake looking up at the sky, finding a book I didn’t know I needed, holding my daughter in my arms for the very first time, knowing that in spite of everything, I am capable of undying love-
They are spilling out even more quickly than fear, these glimmers, these tiny wings of wonder and hope and joy.
I will make them into the tail of my kite.
Lift drag gravity tension. For the kite to soar all these things must work together.
Kite and tail fly together held to the earth by slender string climbing and dancing on currents unseen.
Looking in the rear-view mirror while driving down those narrow country roads is a bad idea.
-Amy Le Ann Richardson, from Don’t Look Back a poem in the Summer 2024 issue of Untelling
Amy Le Ann Richardson is another one of those do-gooders the world is lucky to have. She seems to be everywhere all at once, full of ideas that she is busy putting into motion. She is a writer, a farmer, a visual artist and an advocate for small farmers and the environment, all while raising her young family. One of the cool things she has been up to is hosting writing workshops for mountain women farmers and gardeners through a grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women to honor and preserve their stories. I’ve spent many hours with her on the porches of Hindman Settlement School in wide-ranging conversations, the kind of talk that spins worlds into being. She doesn’t know this, but I keep the little maple leaf bottle of syrup from her farm she gave me a couple of years ago on my meditation altar. It is there to remind me of the sweetness of friendship.
I like overcast days, and I like this Diamine ink. It will be lovely in my writing pen.
My Advent Tree this year is dedicated to my writer friends and teachers. I am so grateful for all the light you shine in the darkness.
An Apology: I am behind on my Advent tree posts, the last week of school before the holiday break has pretty much done me in, but I aim to catch up in the next few days.
I love these lines so much, these lines and this poem Sunday Open House by my friend Angie Mimms. I feel this in my bones, this longing for hope. I love its evocation of the Emily Dickinson poem that has lived in my head for many years. Angie nurtures hope, she is a careful guardian of it. She’s been my roommate at the Appalachian Writers Workshop many times along with our friend Patsy Kisner. Angie is floodkin too, we were sharing a room in Stuckey, one of the rooming houses on campus, when the 2022 flood in Eastern Kentucky rose up in the middle of the night. Stuckey became an ark that night, sheltering lots of people and their children and pets on campus seeking higher ground. We had a kitten that belonged to musician Sarah Kate Morgan in our room that night, keeping it safe from the dogs who were in the rest of the house. I only have to close my eyes to be right back in that room with her.
A cherished memory: walking through Angie’s neighborhood with her beautiful daughter Anna blowing bubbles everywhere we went. Angie is a former newspaper journalist who has lately been writing poetry and creative nonfiction around her daughter’s struggles with Dravet syndrome, a rare and debilitating form of epilepsy. Recently she has been working on a daily devotional for Anna and others who may not move through the world like most people. I know this will be a work of hope and beauty.
This looks black in the photo, but it’s a stunning metallic teal that sometimes looks red by Diamine called Laurel.
My Advent Tree this year is dedicated to my writer friends and teachers. I am so grateful for all the light you shine in the darkness.
An Apology: I am behind on my Advent tree posts, the last week of school before the holiday break has pretty much done me in, but I aim to catch up in the next few days.
-Marianne Worthington from I wanted to write a poem
Marianne Worthington is a wonder. A light many of us have come to depend on at the Appalachian Writers Workshop. Poet, teacher and a friend to everyone but someone who won’t let you off the hook either- do it and do it well. The last couple of years she’s taught a pre-workshop at the AWW open to just 20 or so registrants, first come first serve. As soon as you get your acceptance letter from Hindman, you can sign up. It allows you to come a day early for some writing sessions with special focuses in poetry. I’m no poet, but that doesn’t stop me from writing poems anyway. It helps to have a teacher.
This last summer I was particularly relieved and grateful to be at Hindman for AWW and Marianne’s session. I’d spent the spring in the hospital with my 24 year old daughter who had a cryptogenic stroke that affected her entire right side. It was a terrifying time, but we were helped by so much kindness- from my family, Hindman friends and from my church and school colleagues. Sitting in rehab one day, out of the blue I received a DoorDash gift card from Marianne that made me cry. So thoughtful and so much needed at that moment! By the time Hindman came around, my daughter was in her last week of outpatient rehab and was doing well, though still early in her recovery. My sweet family made it possible for me to go take some deep breaths at Hindman that last week of July.
I hadn’t written anything outside of my journal for months, but it was Marianne’s class that helped create a way in, a door that I could open to begin writing about the stroke. I ended up with a draft of a poem that made me shake inside, so I knew it was truth. It has since become part of a trio of poems called Daughter that will be published in the next issue of Untelling. Thank you, Marianne, for your wisdom and wit and thoughtfulness. Thank you for showing me so many doors.
This is a fabulous red with gold sparkles. Ruby Taffeta by Diamine. Terrific drag name.
The lines I use in my ornament are from Marianne’s book spine poem in the Summer 2024 issue of Untelling. It’s a feature in every issue in the back pages- different writers are asked to take books from James Still’s office and stack them to make a poem. The photo of the books is by Corey Terry. James Still was a titan of Appalachian literature who lived for many years in Oak Ledge, a house built by Lucy Furman out of the proceeds of TheQuare Women, her book about the remarkable women who founded the Hindman Settlement School. Tickles me pink that you can get this book today, even on Amazon- https://www.amazon.com/Quare-Women-Kentucky-Mountains-Industries/dp/1950564037 though I hope you’ll ask your local bookstore to order it for you instead.
Here is a terrific podcast episode where you can hear Marianne read her work. It’s also a great site for anyone interested in Appalachian literature.
Marianne is a writer, educator and editor. She co-founded Still: The Journal an online journal that energized and celebrated contemporary Appalachian writers. It’s no longer being published but you can still access the archives- it’s a treasure trove and it’s free: https://www.stilljournal.net/
-Chain of Custody, Melissa Helton from Troublesome Rising
None of us can thank Melissa enough for the way she is adding to the legacy of the Hindman Settlement School. Since 1902 it has been a place of inspiration, respect and preservation where people have come to learn and teach and share. Melissa has helped widen their circle even more as Literary Arts Director. She started the Ironwood Studio, a writers workshop for high school students that has quickly become the life blood of many young writers. She’s expanded the weekend retreats that are my personal oases throughout the year- not sure I could get through the year without them at this point. She puts together a kick ass Appalachian Writers Workshop that exceeds expectations every year. She founded, edits and fights for the absolutely gorgeous Untelling: The Literary and Arts Magazine of Hindman Settlement School (and there really is no literary print magazine out there like it). Right this very minute she is at Winter Burrow- a very cool weekend gathering of artists, scholars, writers, musicians and community organizers that I hope to be able to attend one year, another one of her brainchildren.
She’s a remarkable poet, artist, teacher and editor. Her anthology Troublesome Rising is a powerful collection of writing and art about the 1,000 year flood of Eastern Kentucky in 2022. The Appalachian Writer’s Workshop was in midweek when it hit, water rising 20 feet in just a couple of hours in the middle of the night, scouring the narrow valleys of the region. All of us who were there were changed by that flood. We, all of us, are floodkin now.
I’m happy for the chance to express how grateful I am to Melissa for all her reclamation work- on the school archives and buildings, and for our community and our memories.
-from alone in the house of my heart, Kari Gunter-Seymour
Some of the great gifts of the Appalachian Writers Workshop are the evening readings by faculty in the social hall where we all gather together. This morning, I am remembering Kari Gunter-Seymour’s reading this last summer- the delight of it, the bubbles, how even the hardest things rose up shimmering. I am remembering her singing, the surprise and joy of it. We can still sing she tells us, when all else fails, we can still sing.
I’m so grateful that I can sit here on a gray snowy morning reading your poetry Kari and be able to hear it in your own voice. Thank you, friend.
Kari Gunter-Seymour is the Poet Laureate of Ohio and a 9th generation Appalachian. She has a pretty fabulous website where you can find out more about her remarkable work.
Last year, Fireside Industries published Jane Hick’s remarkable poetry collection The Safety of Small Things, one of my favorite books of 2024. I read it all at once and have dipped back into it again and again. It is such good company. It lends me courage. The book speaks of her journey through cancer, of grief and fear and of the small mercies that can lead you through. I have been lucky to attend workshops and retreats with her at Hindman Settlement School- wise, grounded, funny and focused, Jane raises the energy of every room. Poet in the house, I remember to breathe.
When I think of Clayton, I see us standing together on the footbridge across Troublesome Creek watching the muskrat come and go from its lodge on the little grass island in the middle of Troublesome. We stood a long time, mostly silent, bearing witness to the wonder of it. His work is like that- a quiet, steady witness to wonder.
This line is from a poem in his first chapbook Concerning the Service, recipient of the Beyond Words Poetry Chapbook Awards 2024.
Clayton will be living at the Hindman Settlement School soon as their Youth Literary Arts Coordinator. Oh, this makes my heart happy.
This photo doesn’t do justice to this metallic Dimaine ink that changes from deep red tp blue to purple to green as you shift it in the light. It’s glorious.
My Advent Tree this year is dedicated to my writer friends and teachers. I am so grateful for all the light you shine in the darkness.
The blossoms lengthened to prickle-skinned shafts, butter and egg yolk yellow, peeping from under broad fronds, jungle leaves, looking like they belonged in the outskirts of Manila, where he ordered a wife once.
From Heirlooms by Erin Miller Reid
Erin always brings gifts to lay on the little dining room table at Stuckey, one of the houses at the Hindman Settlement School in Knott County Kentucky, a chosen home for so many people since 1902. Writers gather there at the annual Appalachian Writer Workshop and several weekend retreats through the year. We work during the day and stay up late at night sharing gifts, swapping stories and catching up, and yes, partying.. When Erin opens her mouth to share a story, those who know her perk up their ears, waiting for the moment it turns south, because it always does only you don’t know where or how. Then boom! There it goes, and we howl or cover our ears. Don’t ask about examining rooms or the elephant that was hung for murder in Kingsport, Tennessee.
I love Erin and her generosity and her south turns. She writes poems and short stories and has a novel coming out in the Fall of 2026 that I can’t wait to get my hands on. Party on Dr. Reid.
Erin is also Flood kin, here’s some of her flood writing:
Oh Patsy, I breathe easier when I’m around you. We recognize something about each other, maybe it’s the way we hold grief in our bodies. We see it and don’t need to talk about it but can with ease if we want. For years now we have been friends, flood kin and roommates at the Appalachian Writers Workshops and retreats at Hindman. You and I and Angie Mimms will lie on our beds and laugh like girls at summer camp, lightening the load we each of us carry. Thank you for that ease. Thank you for that understanding.
I love your poetry- lean, spare, and right to the heart of mystery. I want Everyone to read it.
Everyone, this is Patsy Kisner. Her most recent book is Until the Surface Breaks. She has another collection coming out soon and I hope I get to do the cover art.
The Fox at Dawn 