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Reflections of Appalachian Life in Recent Collections of Short Stories, Sketches, and Poetry BY GARLAND O. GUNTER Garland O. Gunter is Associate Professor of English at the University of Richmond, Va., where he has taught for ten years. He has degrees from Wake Forest College, Columbia University, and University of Maryland. His first teaching was done in Kentucky colleges in the early 1950's—at Caney Junior Coltege and Sue Bennett College. He is much interested in theories of Romanticism, symbolism in poetry, psychological theories of Freud and Jung, mythologies, folklore, archetypal patterns in literature and in other art forms. He has published studies related to these interests. In this second of a series of bibliographical articles on Southern Appalachian literature and culture the subject is restricted to collections of short stories, sketches, and poetry appearing in print during the last twenty years. No attempt has been made, however , to provide a comprehensive list of all such works. Rather, the thirteen reviews found below are designed to provide— and hopefully do provide— an accurate overview of the above-mentioned types of works which have appeared since 1955. It is obvious that collections of folk tales have been published in the greatest number, probably because grants have been available to finance this sort of thing. On the other hand, creative writing— both prose and poetry— is relatively scarce, possibly due to the fact that Appalachian life is rapidly losing its distinctive character. However, in view of the many economic and sociological studies being made of Appalachia, one might reasonably expect more serious fiction to originate there. In regard to folk tales, quite a variety has been collected. Some, like the Jack Tales, edited by Richard Chase in the 1940's, bear clear marks of their European origin. Examples of these discussed below are Marie Campbell's Tales from the Cloud Walking Country and Ruth Ann Musick's Green Hills of Magic: West Virginia Folktales from Europe. The latter, however, is unique in that many of the stories came from Eastern Europe and have been known in the Appalachian region for a comparatively short time. Many collections of folk tales so strongly reflect the culture of Appalachia that the casual reader would assume that all the stories originated there, although this might be true of no more than fifty percent. (Of course, the real "origin" of any folk tale is a complex matter to determine and depends heavily upon one's interpretation of "origin." This fact is made clear by the scholarly paraphernalia found in several of these collections . ) Examples of such collections discussed below are Ruth Ann Musick's The Telltale 31 Lilac Bush and Other West Virginia Ghost Tales, Hubert J. Davis' 'Pon My Honor, Hit's the Truth: Tall Tales from the Mountains, Herbert M. Sutherland's Tall Tales of the DeviTs Apron, and Leonard W. Roberts' South from Hell-fer-Sartin: Kentucky Mountain Folk Tales. Other works by Roberts might have been included, such as Old Greasybeard: Tales from the Cumberland Gap and I Bought Me a Dog and Other Folktales from the Southern Mountains. On the other hand, A Collection of Folklore by Undergraduate Students of East Tennessee State University, also discussed in this essay, deals with personages, local events, and customs which clearly indicate an Appalachian origin. Turning now to poetry which reflects Appalachian life, one finds few collections. Certainly there are a number of excellent poets, currently or at least recently productive , who are fairly closely associated with Appalachia in one way or another: George Scarbrough, Byron Herbert Reece, Woodridge Spears, Fred Chappell, to name a few. However, not all of their work clearly pertains to the Appalachian region. Judging from several journals which publish poetry about the Southern Mountains, there are quite a few skillful poets at work these days. Editor William Plumley's Poems from the HiIh, 1970, which is reviewed herein, bears out this fact; but few of these young poets seem to have published collections. Furthermore, as any bibliographer soon discovers, titles of poetry collections about Appalachia are hard to find, and it is even more difficult to locate copies of the publications . Apparently only a few libraries— and this does...

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