The Kentucky Anthology: Two Hundred Years of Writing in the Bluegrass State

Bruce Bennett Brown

759 Bruce Bennett Brown “Blue-Fall” One of the least-known of Kentucky’s important literary figures is the reclusive Bruce Bennett Brown of Zebulon, near Pikeville, in Pike County. In the 1960s and 1970s at Pikeville College he was editing Twigs, one of the most lively and experimental literary magazines in the country, which published established, well-known writers alongside fresh and fragrant talent. He has written some of the most brilliant and original—sometimes enigmatic—poetry of anyone in Kentucky. In addition, he is a master of two almost extinct genres—the diary and the personal letter. The poem below is but a nugget of the riches in his trunk. h Dreadful is the singing of the hymn in this chilly afternoon before the oblong blunted tale becomes a bell, walking in a peal unshaped three colors make a sound you say: freckled egg in the shaded nest, history of the flapping flock and the flight and the light slanted right, rain cuts the sparrow down to size. You talk confusing things about leaving here for France, questioning the architecture of the human column, how soon the low wind again over emptiness and the trembling setting in, the cherry in the wooden bowl splits its final seed. We give enough attention to the dry moon, listening for the catch in the blood and the floating leaves, 760 The Kentucky Anthology a lost bee from the hive a hand flung up for speech and is that Silence forever and right now. Don’t leave the cry open with a why. Let the cry close. In the courtesy of country places your hands quiet the furious fruit and the last whimper of the sun. You would not try to spell my curses or my praise. My private language is my own worn book. You will stay and be, will doubt and hold out. Dreadful is the singing of the hymn and the terrible gesture of amen, the echo and the scream lead out the celebration ...