Book Signing And Reading, Kirk Judd & Edwina Pendarvis, Huntington, WV, July 28, 2023

 

On July 28, 2023, my wife Candice & I spent a long, rewarding day in Huntington, West Virginia, part of which I wrote about in this earlier blog post regarding our visit to the Huntington Museum of Art.  But our primary reason for visiting Huntington was to attend a joint book signing and reading by two of our friends at Cicada Books on 14th Street West.  The two friends are Edwina "Eddy" Pendarvis and Kirk Judd who have both been very active in the West Virginia literary scene for many years.  Both are excellent poets and Eddy has also produced several excellent works of nonfiction both in the field of Appalachian Studies and in her professional academic career in the field of education.  I have known Eddy for about 6 years and known about Kirk and his work for probably forty years although we had never met face to face before this reading.  Kirk and I had both participated in an online reading to promote the posthumous book "Milky Way Accent" by Bob Snyder, one of my early mentors and one of the best poets West Virginia has ever produced.  We have maintained an intermittent Facebook communication pattern ever since but this was our first meeting. 

Kirk and his wife, Eddy, Candice and I all arrived at the book store about an hour early for the reading and were able to converse awhile before others arrived for the event.  We talked about a wide ranging series of topics as most people do in such settings and at least hit the high spots concerning Appalachian Literature, poetry in general, the art museum, and God only knows what else which is the very kind of conversation which I enjoy.  The reading had a very sizeable attendance by the standards of such events in small venues and the room was soon filled with a wide variety of aficionados of literature.  We were able to meet and talk briefly with several others whom we had never known, most of whom were friends of either Eddy or Kirk and his wife.  

The reading began with Eddy reading some from both her historical body of poetic works and some short selections from her new nonfiction book "Another World: Ballet Lessons from Appalachia" which is available from the Jesse Stuart Foundation in Ashland, Kentucky. Although I can't say that I knew this book in its embryonic stage, I had been aware of it in a limited way as Eddy had worked on the manuscript and had eagerly anticipated its arrival in the world since I have enjoyed literally every word of Eddy's work I have ever read.  "Another World..." is based on interviews which Eddy completed with 24 women who took childhood ballet lessons in Appalachia and discusses various aspects of ballet and how it affected the lives of these women.  I am certain that the book is and will forever be a thorn in the sides of those perpetual detractors of Appalachia who live under the misconception that this is a region without both culture and cultured people.  It is an unusual topic for an Appalachian book and I admit that I have never seen another book about ballet in Appalachia.  Like myself, you may find this to be your introduction to the topic within the region.  I must say that this makes me justifiably proud as does any other occasion when I see those detractors set back on their heels.  But I must also say that for several years I had been aware that the father of the actor Richard Thomas, of "The Waltons" television fame, grew up to become a New York ballet dancer during his childhood in nearby Paintsville, Kentucky.  I will report more fully on the book after I have completed reading it.  

Eddy's poetry reading was and always has been a fulfilling experience.  Her imagery is crisp, both human and humane, and always reflective of her highly productive life as a successful Appalachian woman, professor, poet, and educator.  She read a limited number of her fine poems and both Candice and I thoroughly enjoyed hearing her once again.  

 

Kirk Judd's reading was somewhat longer than Eddy and came, in part, from a new book of poetry which he coauthored with three of his long term female poet friends, Susanna Connelly Holstein, Cheryl Denise, and Sherrell Runnion Wigal.  He says that the four of them frequently take a shared writing period together at a cabin retreat in West Virginia.  The book, "Porch Poems" and its title reflect their long lived practice of sitting, talking, and writing poetry on the very porch which is pictured on the cover of the book which is available from Sheila-Na-Gig Editions.  Kirk has a wonderful reading style which is as much performance as it is some more tame form of "reading poetry".  Both his vocal style and poetic rhythms are geared and polished over years of writing and reading in public to function best in this environment.  His work is the product of a lifetime of honing, fine tuning, and perfecting a style and a body of work which is best suited to such a delivery technique.  I have seen other lesser poets attempt to utilize such a delivery and rarely seen it succeed.  With Kirk Judd, the writer, the poetry, the delivery, and the pleasure therefrom are melded into exactly what such a style should be.  Kirk often performs his reading with the accompaniment of an old time fiddler and his earlier book, "My People Was Music", was published in its original edition with an accompanying CD of such an accompanied reading of some of the poetry.  The current second edition of that book is published with a computer code on the cover so the purchaser can access the recorded versions online.  

 The reading was a success both in terms of the pleasure the audience obviously received from both poets and based on the sizeable attendance in a small bookstore located in a somewhat seedy section of West Huntington,West Virginia.  All the books mentioned in this blog post from both authors are well worth purchasing by the student of Appalachian Literature.  I recommend the work of both authors without reservations not because they are my friends but because I respect both them and their work. 

"Field of Vision" by Kirk Judd--Reflections On Reading His Early Poetry

It is not uncommon for me to either stumble into or deliberately locate great books from earlier times which I should have read when they were new.  "Field of Vision" by Kirk Judd has now joined that ever growing list of such books.  This was published in 1986 by Judd which was considerably after he had published poetry in numerous magazines especially in the Appalachian arena.  The book contains about forty poems and about half of  them had been previously published in a variety of magazines.  I have previously written about Kirk Judd's most recent book of poetery "My People Was Music" which contains much of his later works and some of his earlier.  I liked that book a great deal and I have to say I like "Field of Vision" even more.  It is a widely varied collection of poems covering a plethora of areas of human existence.  In some ways, it is a book of poetry by a young, vibrant, man who still has been able to avoid quite of a few of life's disappointments.  But it also contains the poems "DOA (Sparky's Song)" and "The Death of Her Son" which are about some of those great disappointments even if the latter poem discusses the experience of another, a grieving mother.  "The Death of Her Son" contains the powerful lines: 

"She felt him rise to leave

and through her tears

she saw him

and loved him

and finally

let him go."

In an entirely different vein, "Visitin' Charleston" tells the story in well written lines about taking a trip to the city to throw a drunk and eat breakfast in the bus station "...with steam comin' off your shoulders and nobody wantin' to get within ten feet".  Only  young man who has thrown such a drunk can accurately and poetically describe one.  And, of course, as I have learned from reading two of Kirk Judd's books, he must write about the great outdoors and his love for it in poems such as "Morning High Meadow" which contains the beautiful lines "hanging dropping dew to webs and silver threads and grasses green and golden".  This is a complex book of great poetry which leaves no doubt that Kirk Judd is a complex man and was complex even in those formative years in which parts of this little jewel were written.  But if you feel that you need a further recommendation for the book, simply read the back cover blurb from Pulitzer Prize Winner Gwendolyn Brooks in which she describes Kirk Judd's poetry as "...delightfully amazing and rash and impudent..." What further recommendation could you need, if you can still find a copy of this 1986 publication as I did?  

 

On Reading "My People Was Music" by Kirk Judd

 

Kirk Judd and I passed like ships in the night without ever knowing each other during our time at the Southern Appalachian Circuit of Antioch College in Beckley, West Virginia, in that amazing circle of writers, poets, social activists, teachers, students, unionists, liberals, and outlaws who had been assembled by the great Appalachian poet and educator Bob Snyder.  By outlaws I mean those of us who were willing and able to be, to become, to seek to be outlaws in the mold of Mother Jones, John L. Lewis, Jack Kerouac, Bob Dylan, Hosea Hudson, Woody Guthrie, Jock Yablonski, and many others who always Stood Up, Spoke Up, and Spoke Out against evil in its many forms.  Kirk Judd and I have still never met but we do communicate now and then since participating in a Zoom Poetry Reading of the posthumous book of poetry, "Milky Way Accent",  by our mutual mentor and friend Bob Snyder.  Kirk Judd published this book of poetry, My People Was Music, in 2014 with Mountain State Press in Charleston, West Virginia, and I have to admit that I had never read it until he sent me a copy shortly after that Zoom reading which I encourage all of you to view if you did not see it live.  And this is a bit earlier in my post than I usually say this, but you should also consider reading Kirk Judd's book which is actually one of three books of poetry he has published.  The others were self-published as I understand it, and will be much harder to find copies of on the open market.  

Kirk Judd has made public appearances for many years as what can best be described as a performance poet utilizing music and musicians in association with his poetry and this book was actually issued with an accompanying music CD.  The book is also noteworthy for the poem, "The Ground of Eden", which is described as a "dual voice" poem and is actually a melding of two separate poems by Judd and Sherrel Wigal with alternating stanzas from each poem on opposite sides of the page.  The explanatory notes in the back of the book have this to say about the poem(s): It is a performance piece meant to be read in two voices.  The concluding stanza, written by Wigal epitomizes the beliefs and emotions many of us hold dear who have ever lived in West Virginia: 

This

This is the land which owns you

This is the ground of Eden

This is the soil

You cannot leave

In many ways, that stanza epitomizes the entire book even though it was not written by Kirk Judd.  This book is woven throughout with a deep love of the land, the mountains, the unexplainable soul of West Virginia and the undying devotion of West Virginians for the land, the state, the mountains.  Kirk Judd describes himself as a trout fisherman among other things and a great deal of the poetry is rooted in fishing, hiking, living, breathing, in the mountains.  One of my favorite poems in the book is called "Spring Prayer On Bald Knob" which describes a hike.  One stanza of the rather lengthy poem characterizes much of what I find in the book and that all consuming love of the land: 

I make it back to the peak

And now begin to understand how awed I am.

I start the prayer.

I have no tobacco, so I offer water

The only valuable I have with me.

I gave myself years ago.

That stanza takes me back to several experiences of my own, if not hundreds, hiking in the middle of wild, desolate places, living and breathing in the land, the mountains, the surroundings, the creation around me no matter which particular version I, Kirk Judd, or any other reader might hold about the circumstances of that creation.  It reminds of standing, staring from one of the highest overlooks into the New River Gorge, or gazing out over a Virginia valley from the top of Stony Man, or taking in deep, woodsy breaths in a deep Appalachian hollow listening to the trickle and babble of the tiny stream at my feet, or the midnight Native American ceremony in which I once partook in a small cave in East Tennessee on the homeplace of Sgt. Alvin York with a few close friends, sweet grass, cedar, and a clay pipe passed hand to hand.  

I found several things in this book of poetry and one of them was a collection of common griefs with Kirk Judd of some of the people we both knew at different times in both our lives and theirs, our mentor the great Appalachian poet Bob Snyder, Joseph Barret, Rod Harless, Don West, Connie West, and others.  Another of my favorite poems about grief in the book is entitled "The Death of Her Son".  The first and last stanza of that poem describe not just that woman's grief but the manner in which many people resolve their grief: 

She asked all her questions

in the unanswering hours, 

after the preacher had gone

and the boys who brought the flowers

from the funeral home

and all the family and friends

who brought cakes and coffee

and all the food

in dishes with name tags

on the things that needed to be returned...

 The sorrow overwhelmed he.

She fell down and wept.

She felt him rise to leave

and, through her tears,

she saw him,

loved him,

and finally,

let him go.

For those of us who have experienced multiple, small, home funerals in the mountains of Appalachia, especially those of us who have seen our friends, loved ones, heroes die too young those two stanzas describe the process of grief and paint a vivid photograph of how we Appalachians have come together to support our friends and neighbors during the hard times of life and death.  We have come together carrying our condolences and our contributions in bowls of shucked beans and cushaw,  and large, stacked plates of Funeral Bologna sandwiches ground in an old hand cranked grinder which helped us meld cheap bologna, pickle relish, and mayonnaise into something which might not be kind words but clearly demonstrated our unspoken thoughts.