"Twigs XI/I Kentucky Bicentennial Issue" Fall 1974--What An Issue!

I have mentioned in a few blog posts lately that I have recently bought a sizeable number of books from a friend in the antique business which had come from the estate of a local newspaper writer who knew many of the regional writers in Eastern Kentucky and Southern West Virginia and literally kept everything that fell into her hands.  One of the books in that pile I bought is an issue of the magazine "Twigs" which was originally published by the University of Pikeville.  The magazine, at that time, benefited from the fact that Lillie D. Chaffin and Leonard Roberts both worked at the university and served as the editorial staff of "Twigs".  There is an Appalachian literary award named for Chaffin and her husband Thomas at Morehead State University.  

"Twigs" also deserves a great deal of credit in the history of Appalachian Literature for having been the first place in which Loyal Jones' seminal work, "Appalachian Values", was published.  But my first pleasant surprise in this issue of "Twigs" came when I saw that it contained a poem by Loyal Jones about the death of his brother as a child.  Loyal Jones is one of the most famous names in Appalachian Literature and the entire field of Appalachian Studies and I had never known that he ever wrote poetry.  And it is actually a pretty darn good poem.  The poem is called "To Elmer" and contains these powerful lines from an adult brother who never saw his sibling grow to adulthood:

"But how does one fashion a brother?

So I wonder still what you were, 

What you held in your heart

That quit so soon.

I can only wish for more

To go with the half-etched face

Which is all I have of you, my brother."  From "To Elmer" by Loyal Jones

That poem reminds me of one I also published more than forty years ago, at roughly the same period as Loyal Jones published his.  Mine was published in "What's A Nice Hillbilly Like You..." and was about the coal mining death of my brother Hewie Hicks which was called "Huey, My Brother" and is printed here in its entirety.  

"I don't remember much about him

Except the flowers he grew were beautiful.

(He talked to flowers you know.)

And how one side of his face in the casket

Was lower than the other

Because the rock fall that killed him

On his retirement day almost missed.

(He listened to the mine you know.)"  From "Huey, My Brother" by Roger D. Hicks

I find it fascinating that many miles apart, at nearly the same time without having ever met at that time, that Loyal Jones and I were both writing and publishing poetry about the deaths of our brothers and both of us were using references to the faces of the dead brothers to build our poems.  Robert "Bob" Snyder, the wonderful Appalachian poet and founder of the Southern Appalachian Circuit of Antioch College in Beckley, West Virginia, used my poem as an illustration of a quality he referred to as "enmaskedness".  He described "enmaskedness" as "...the ability to rest calmly in one's self, one's role, without anxiously reaching for irony or escape, within a larger situation that is stormily comical or tragic or otherwise energized"  (Robert F. Snyder, "Colonial Memesis and the Appalachian Renascence" in "Appalachian Journal, Vol. 3, No. 5, 1978).  Snyder also used a poem by Lillie D. Chaffin about the Buffalo Creek Flood to illustrate the same quality of enmaskedness: 

"Deadlines! Deadlines of the feeble, the small

and the laggards. Damnation to dams, and to, 

rubber dolls bobbing on indigo waves

with no one to press their "Mama" cry buttons

or scold at how soggy diapers can get."  From "After The Buffalo Creek Dam Break" by Lillie D. Chaffin.

I had never intended to use this blog post to discuss Bob Snyder's exposition of what he called "enmaskedness".  But, since I referred back to that article of his, I realized that the three of us, Jones, Chaffin, and me, had all provided evidence of what my mentor, Bob Snyder, was talking about, in our poems about death of various kinds.  And, of course, Chaffin and I were both discussing death due to the shortcomings of the Appalachian mining industry and Loyal Jones and I were both discussing the deaths of beloved brothers.  I seem to come up short in drawing a terminal conclusion about this whole quality of enmaskedness and the poetry of the three of us, but I am fascinated by how well it all seems to tie up in a neat little ball.  I am really glad I found this copy of "Twigs"; and, I will be forever grateful that I was blessed to know and be mentored by both Snyder and Jones.

To return to my discussion of the issue of "Twigs", it also contains work from several more significant writers including a short story, "Sail On And On", by Leonard Roberts who was just as generally unknown for his short stories as Jones was for his poetry.  The list of authors on the cover of the book mentions Joy Bale, a former Kentucky Poet Laureate; Wendell Berry, who generally needs no introduction; Jack Cady, a former Kentuckian who was successful as a mainstream fiction writer; Jim Wayne Miller, who is actually listed as "James Wayne Miller" a name which I had never seen used to refer to him before; James Still, who also needs no introduction; and my other friend and mentor, Albert Stewart.  Interestingly, the book also contains poetry from William Howard Cohen, another of my early mentors; and Jane Stuart, the daughter of Jesse Stuart.  The cover does not even list these two.  To say the least, this particular volume of "Twigs" contains a great deal of writing from nearly a dozen well known Appalachian writers.  Naturally, since it is 45 years old, it will be very difficult to find on Internet used book sites and likely impossible to locate except in estate sales such as where I found it.  But if you stray into a copy, buy it, read it, enjoy it.  It is well worth whatever it will cost if you are an actual aficionado of Appalachian Literature.