Tribute to James Still

Poems by James Still After Some Twenty Years Attempting to Describe A Flowering Branch of Redbud How say the blooming redbud other than The bees of April swarmed today? Unemployed Coal Miner What else to do with hands except to put them into pockets where nothing is? JAMES STILL's life represents a lengthy voyage down a river which is small in its geographic measurements but infinite in the depth and variety of human experience encountered there. On his journey down this river he has stopped often to watch and listen, record and report. His is the journey of the artistnaturalist who enjoys his feeling of wonder about it all. He stops to watch closely the small things which others pass by. He sees the relation of the part to the whole and does not sacrifice detail for generality. He makes notes and sometimes, later, fashions them carefully into story and verse. No one could be more accurate in observing than James Still is, or more meticulous in crafting spare but vivid word-images. . . . Above all, in his understanding of the particularity of place and person, James Still is able to find universal meaning. It is for this triumph that he deserves recognition.© 1983 by James Still John B. Stephenson 13 ...