Bloodroot: Reflections on Place by Appalachian Women Writers

JANE STUART: This House and This World

JANE STUART Resident of Greenup, Kentucky, Jane Stuart (b. 1942) graduated with a B.A. from CaseWestern Reserve University and a Ph.D. in Italian from Indiana University. Within the past few years several of her translations from Eugenio Montale's La Buftra e Altro have been published in Oasis, Tampa Review, and Mother Tongues. She is the author of numerous books of poetry, including A Years Harvest (1957), Eyes ofthe Mole (1%7), White Barn (1973), The Wren and Other Poems (1993), Passage into Time (1994), and Cherokee Lullaby (1995). She has also published several novels- Yellowhawk (1973), Passerman's Hollow (1974), and Land ofthe Fox (1975)-as well as the short story collection Gideon's Children (1976) . Transparencies, her book of remembrances about her father, Jesse Stuart, was published in 1985. Recent work has appeared in Poet's Challenge, Poetic Eloquence, Medusas Hairdo, Pegasus, and Reflect. One of her stories was just reprinted in the annual edition of White River Quarterly. She is listed with Poets & Writers, the British Library, and the International Biographical Center in Cambridge, England, and is a member of both the Kentucky State Poetry Society (KSPS) and the Academy ofAmerican Poets. In 1992 she won the KSPS grand prix for "From Winter Meditations" and in 1995, the Poetry Forum chapbook contest for Moon over Miami. Stuart is currently serving as regional director for the eastern district of KSPS. * * * This House and This World I have found a world at home. Even when I traveled to other places, I wanted to remember things and bring them home with me. It's the eloquence ofhome that overwhelms me, and that I write about. One evening long ago my father borrowed my watercolors, went out on a walk, and began painting. All my life I have tried to sketch and draw, but what I found I really could do was recall that evening-recall that evening with words, not paint. I still see the trees, his trees, and the moon. Later I listened to people talk and absorbed words this way. When I went to school, I found myself searching to understand things that were taught to me as concepts, things I was told to read and explain. I think that I wanted to say something more, even then, and so I began constructing small odes, with words that fascinated me. From the beginning I used words mainly to recall and understand the world I knew, the world that was close. Because I have always been able to name the moments and things ofthis world-ofmy world-that have meant something to me (and see them even more clearly as I age), I write about them every chance I get. For in them is my life, the world, the universe. My dolls are still upstairs in the trunk. It's all right to narrow in and have a small world that may look no bigger than a dollhouse to someone else. This is a family home I write about. The house, which was once a log cabin, is over a hundred years old. In fact, it is nearly 150 years old. It's covered with shingles and has four fireplaces; the flues and chimneys, when seen from outside in the backyard, remind me a little ofthe characters that "pop up" from the roofin Dylan Thomas's Under Milkwood. Nestled in a valley are the house and outside rooms, with a creek running underneath. Behind us is Shinglemill Hollow, and across the road and near a salt block for the deer is what I used to call BreadloafHill. Split-rail fences run up and down the road, the fields are filled with hay that is cut and baled for cattle, and although I have added a satellite dish-we are modern-squirrels still run over the roof at night. Two years ago the wind blew part of a chestnut tree down, but three chestnut trees still stand on the hill behind the well. There are ten rooms in the house with books in eight of them and three workrooms outside. My parents lived here. And now my grandson visits. My father 284 JANE STUART worked in the kitchen, then the study or the workroom, then upstairs, then outside . Sometimes he went to the ridge and worked at what was later known as Op's Cabin in his book The Good Spirit ofLaurel Ridge. The house is...