Looking For Native Ground: The Appalachian Poetry of Jim Wayne Miller and Fred Chappell

Looking For Native Ground The Appalachian Poetry of Jim Wayne Miller and Fred Chappell by Rita S. Quillen PROGRESS, POETRY AND APPLACHIA As middle-class America has poured into the Appalachian region, the native mountain people have found themselves caught in a cultural time warp that may be unparalleled in our history. The rural life, with its particular values, dialect, and institutions, is being replaced by or at least heavily mixed with, a mainstream society. The politicians and businessmen of the area laud this as progress, and, of course, the standard of living and education have improved in the region. But the people of the mountains—old and young, educated and illiterate, farmers and teachers—have mixed feelings about this "progress." In response to this undercurrent of anxiety, the writers, particularly the poets, have sought to describe and explain the evolution that is taking place within the culture. P. J. Laska has written: In the work of Appalachian poets with roots here the very conception of art seems different, not just because it is more political or more critical or more didactic, but because it seeks to break down the wall that separates literature from life. It is art that seeks to be involved in the life of the people and tries to do this at a time when there is very little poetry being written which connects itself to the world of people and their history, their struggles, and their work...poetry in which the poem responds to the felt but perhaps unarticulated needs of the people...Our poets are therefore out of tune with most of what goes on in the national poetry network, and are by choice, I think, closer to a regional folk conception of art.1 Two ofthe region's most respected poets, Jim Wayne Miller and Fred Chappell, are primarily folk artists, by Laska's definition, giving us an account of a particular 42 people. The recurring images in their poetry are ofeveryday, common events: tending the land, hunting and fishing, watching children, visiting friends and family, growing old. There is also a very strong sense of place; events are occurring in a place easily identified by its sights, sounds, smells, and problems. Miller and Chappell write vividly about a world they know firsthand. Their writing is in contrast to most modern American poetry which has become increasingly abstract, obscure, intensely personal and highly intellectual. Many poets today seem to be trying to detach the poem and the reader from any experiential reality. Modern poetry becomes merely a dance ofwords on a page. But Miller and Chappell's particular motivation for writing includes not only Emerson's conception of the poet as seer and namer2—someone who enlarges and transcends ordinary experience—but also a strong cultural and regional experience. They are trying to explain their personal experience to themselves and to the rest of the world. They have described a life and a place so clearly through even the most particular and narrow details that all of us can experience it too. By synthesizing their personal past, present, and imagined future in a world that is at once too much with us and too far away, Miller and Chappell transcend the region and bring a wider appreciation and understanding ofthe mountain culture in a state offlux. Before we begin a specific consideration of Miller and Chappell's poetry, the term "folk artist" or "folk writer" needs to be further discussed. The most eloquent definition of the term thus far was published by Chappell himself. Chappell maintains that there are 2 types ofwriters: the folk artist and the "writers ofthe arabesque."3 "Folk artist" is a derisive term, says Chappell. Yet, there are many great writers from every city and country, from every walk of life, that fall into the category of folk artist: Chekhov, Faulkner, Melville, Frank O'Connor, Mark Twain, Thoreau, and others. Chappell explains how he distinguishes between the folk and arabesque writer: ...writers of the arabesque...may be distinguished from folk writers in that their work is less concerned with delivering basic narrative materials than with manipulating these materials in an idiosyncratic manner. All art is, of course, treatment, but...