Booklist and Notes

Booklist and Notes George Brosi Bickley, Ancella R. and Lynda Ann Ewen. Memphis Tennessee Garrison: The Remarkable Story of a Black Appalachian Woman. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2001. 249 pages with a historical afterward by Joe W. Trotter, an index, photographs, list of sources and notes. Hardback in dust jacket. $44.95. Trade paperback. $17.95. In 1969, at the age of 78, Memphis Tennessee Garrison (1890-1988) told her life story to oral history researchers. It languished in the Marshall University Library until it was noticed by sociologist Lynda Ann Ewen. This remarkable story is truly deserving of the light of day as a published book. Garrison was an important civil rights activist. She served on the National Board of the NAACP from 1963-1966, and the annual NAACP dinner in West Virginia is named in her honor. She was also a teacher, a coal-camp resident and the daughter of slaves as well as the granddaughter of a slave-owner. How rare it is to find a book that so thoroughly and engagingly illuminates as dark a historical corner as this does! Ancella Bickley is Vice President for Academic Affairs, Emeritus, at West Virginia State College, and Lynda Ann Ewing (b. 1943) is a sociology professor and co-director of the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Gender in Appalachia at Marshall University. Brown, Harry. Ego's Eye and Other Poems. Lewiston, New York: Mellen Poetry Press, 2001. 53 pages with an index to first lines. Hardback issued without a dust jacket. $40.00. Trade paperback. $14.95. This is a collection of thirty-six poems divided into five sections delineated only by roman numerals. Mostly, these short poems depict the poet's life when his children were at home. They celebrate the ironic in the everyday The collection starts with a two-page essay on what Song of Myself by Walt Whitman teaches about poetry. Harry Brown (b. 1940) grew up in Hillsborough, North Carolina, graduated from Davidson and received his Ph.D. from Ohio University. Since 1970, he has been a professor of English at Eastern Kentucky University. He and his wife live on a farm near Paint Lick, Kentucky. Brown, Harry. Everything Is It's Opposite and Other Poems. . Lewiston, New York: MellenPoetryPress, 2001. 55 pages with an index to first lines. Hardback issued without a dustjacket. $40.00. Trade paperback. $14.95. 112 This collection starts with a section of six grin poems and ends with a section of fourteen farm poems. In between are some people poems. Compared with the other book published almost simultaneously, this one reveals more of Brown's recent life. Now the author of five poetry collections, Brown can always be counted upon to deliver poems that are accessible, interesting, and polished. Conley, Robert J. Sequoyah. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2002. 213 pages. Hardback in dust jacket.. $22.95. Although Sequoyah is truly a towering figure in American history—the person the giant Sequoyah trees were named after—no definitive biography of him exists, and many of the accounts of his life conflict. This book is a novel, though a well-researched one, on a controversial and fascinating Cherokee figure who fought alongside Andrew Jackson against the Creek Indians, who immigrated west before the Trial of Tears and who, most importantly, made spoken Cherokee into a written language, a feat few individuals in recorded history have managed, especially few with so little educational background as Sequoyah. The annotated bibliography, simply entitled "Author's Note" and added at the back of this book, is perhaps worth the price by itself! Robert J. Conley (b. 1940), a Cherokee, has written over thirty books. This makes number twelve in the "Real People" series, all set among the Cherokee, basically before their removal from the Smoky Mountains. Conley lives in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. Coberly Lenore McComas. The Handywoman Stories. Athens: Swallow Press/Ohio University Press, 2002. 155 pages. Hardback in dust jacket. $28.95. Nine of these twenty stories were published in respected literary magazines, and this collection represents basically a life-time of honed writing skills. The author was born and raised in Hamlin, West Virginia, and she sets her...