The Kinfolks Of Ann Cobb

The Kinfolks Of Ann Cobb Ann Cobb, a young Wellesly College graduate came to the hills of eastern Kentucky in 1905 to visit the "Settlement School" recently established on the headwaters of remote Troublesome Creek in Knott County. The visit turned into a stay of more than fifty years. Miss Cobb remained to devote her life to the educational enrichment of the area. Although a versatile and memorable teacher, Ann Cobb may be more remembered finally for her dialect poems. She was an apt student of the dialect, customs, and traditions of the hill folk. The "folkses" of the Settlement became her immediate family and those of the larger community became her outlying kinfolks. She was child-like in her concentrated and deep interest in the "doings" about her; her sense of humor was genial and sparkling, and often as not was directed toward herself. She bore the wisdom and bittersweet burden of deep compassion for the human predicament. These were the qualities that made it possible for Ann Cobb to identify imaginatively with the life of the hill folk and render that experience in memorable verse. She was so unassuming that it was only at the insistence of Lucy Furman that Miss Cobb finally submitted her poems to national magazines. In 1922 her only book, Kinfolks: Kentucky Mountain Rhymes, contained forty-eight poems dealing with prominent aspects of hill life, was published. One critic, perhaps without exaggeration, said of her poems: "With her, mountain dialect poetry reached its finest flowering and with her it died." At her death in 1960, Ann Cobb left many unpublished manuscripts-poems, plays, skits, sketches. Many valiant women-and perhaps a few men-have made valuable and unselfish contributions to Appalachia, but none, perhaps, surpassed the quiet, unassuming gifts of Ann Cobb. If she had done no more than write the poems in Kinfolks, AU Southern Appalachia 5 APPALACHIAN HERITAGE should feel deeply indebted to her. bitterness, the quiet perserverance ana But how well she understood the hill sense of beauty and self, than in folk, how well she was able to render 'Rivers"? How better show the hill their experience imaginatively, the man's sense of place than in "Homesick vitality of her humor and compassion, in Texas"? How better state his can best be shown by her own words generosity than in "Hospitality"? How from Kinfolks. better prove his thoughtfulness than in How better could one discuss the this humorous but sincere criticism of problems of change than through the living costs (fifty years ago) in "Uncle dialect of the hill women in "Up Carr Nathe on the H.C.L."? Creek"? How better indicate the Adjustment to fate and tragedy without —A.F.S. Up Can Creek The ways of the world are a-coming-up Cyan*! Biled shirts and neckties, Powder-pots and veils, Pizen fotched-on liquor, Doctor-pills, and ailsHit 's a sight, all the brash that's a-coming-up Cyarr! The ways of the mountains are passing-up Cyarr! Moonshine stills and manhood, Gear to weave and spin, Good old Reg'lar Baptists Preaching hell for sin. Far'well to the old ways a-passing-up Cyarr! The ways of the world will be holding-up Cyarr! Sorry ways, the old ways, They've a call to go. Only, when you're grave-bound, Changing's alius slow. Old folks will bide by the old ways~up Cyarr. 6 Ann Kms x Yes, I've sev'ral kivers you can see; 'Light and hitch your beastie in the shade! I don't foller weaving now so free, And all my purtiest ones my forebears made. Home-dyed colors kindly melier down Better than these new fotched-on ones from town. I ricollect my granny at the loom Weaving that blue one yonder on the bed. She put the shuttle by and laid in tomb. Her word was I could claim hit when I wed. "Flower of Edinboro" was hits name, Betokening the land from which she came. Nary a daughter have I for the boon, But there's my son's wife from the level land, She took the night with us at harvest-moonA comely...