I’ve read a few books this summer – there are still many on my TBR pile, of course. Here’s a brief run-down with a short synopsis of what I’ve managed to put back on my bookshelves, though.
I’ll start with Jill McCorkle’s Going Away Shoes. I won this as a door prize at last year’s Table Rock Trivia. I started it when I got home, got distracted, and – well, I started it again before I went to Table Rock this year. It’s a great collection of stories, each with its own twists and turns. Several of them feature divorcees in varying degrees of happiness and unhappiness. But they all feature quirky characters that I felt a connection with, even if I’m nothing like them on the surface. I’m not sure what that says about what lies beneath my surface, but, at any rate, they were relatable in lots of ways.
Next is Thursday’s Child, a poetry collection by Sue Weaver Dunlap, a dear friend and mentor from Tennessee. This collection offers numerous family poems, and even though Sue and I are not related, several of the poems felt applicable to several of my family members. There’s a line in “People Were Old When I Was Born” that I truly identify with, even though my people were young and I’ve just outlived them: “I am kin lonely, an old soul waiting my turn.” That gets me every time I read it. It’s hard to be one of the last in your family. I love so many of the poems in this collection. Sue is a master of nature and human nature alike, poem and prose poem alike. There’s not much she can’t – and doesn’t – do in this collection to captivate the reader.
Another poetry collection, The House Inside My Head, is by one of my Table Rock friends, Chris Arvidson, who possibly loves Dolly Partson almost as much as I do. This is not Chris’ most recent poetry collection (I still need to get that one). But there are some great poems in this one. Chris is a native Michigander – when I talk about my Papaw’s family living in Belleville, she knows exactly where that is. One of my favorite poems in this collection is “Dear Lake Michigan,” where the narrator is transformed into a being that rises above Lake Michigan, “Not a being with wings like an angel or bird/ Just lighter than air I soared up and over your waters/Holding my hands above my head reaching for the moon/ From on high I looked down on your peaceful waters/ And saw the life within all around.” Another one I love is “On I-77.” I’m not sure which part of I-77 it refers to – I can imagine it being the stretch from either the North Carolina border to Wytheville, or, maybe more likely, given her Michigan roots, the West Virginia Turnpike. Either way, I know the danger of that highway. I personally don’t mind driving it, but the narrator in her poem begins, “I stare into the screen of my phone/ To focus, to blot it all out/ No! I can’t look up to see/ How close we are to the car in front of us/ How near disaster, the trucks barreling by.” Is it the road, or the driver, or a combination of both? The answer lies at the end of the poem, but I won’t spoil it for you. The title poem is lovely, too, my favorite lines being, “Your house is where you are right now/ Your home is inside your head…” Check this one out – it’s from Finishing Line Press, copyright 2022.
Then there’s my dear friend, James Turner, who has been holding out on me for the year I’ve known him since the Appalachian Writers Workshop last summer (2024), when he helped me kill a cow correctly in one of my short stories in the collection I’ve been working on for two years. James has not one, but TWO books to his credit. And didn’t say a peep about either one until after AAP (Hindman) finished this summer. The first is entitled The Battlefield Guide to Life: War Stories and Life Lessons from Julius Caesar to Sergeant York. It’s a fascinating read, having won a Tennessee public library’s Janice Keck Literary Award. In each story, James takes a personal life story to preface a well-known (or not) battle tale, in the end, offering up a moral we can all take away from the war story to make our own lives better. James is an avid historian, and the battles span the ages, numerous wars and battles, varied places and time periods. It’s not all Confederates and Union soldiers, here, folks. He digs deep for the stories, but makes everything easily readable, enjoyable, and applicable. My favorite was “The Battle of Dalton,” the last story in the book. It’s about soldiers taking a snow day, finding a lighter side in an otherwise grisly game of war. I found it particularly uplifting and appropriate for an ending to a book on battles because, sometimes in life, our greatest battles are fought with ourselves. After I read that one and told James how much I enjoyed it, he confessed he had another secret and sent me a second book — Memaw’s Maxims: Southern Style Wit and Wisdom. Not once has he sold these books at Hindman; he’s just been hiding his light under a bushel! And I’m sure Memaw would have something to say about that – she has lots of wisdom to impart on plenty of subjects. “If you’re not sure that it’s a secret, treat it as if it is.” Which James follows up by saying, “Too many relationships are ruined by people who have an inability to keep something private.” Memaw also says, “The pain of biting your tongue isn’t that great,” “Hoe a straight row,” and “Don’t confuse the last word with the best word.” Memaw knew what she was talking about. And I sure am glad James was taking notes!
The last book I’ll talk about is by my dear friend and mentor, Denton Loving – Feller, Denton’s third collection of poems. Feller is full of nature and passion and passion for natural things. There are several epistolary poems, including “Letter to Jeremy Wade,” which addresses exploiting people for the sake of sensationalism and ponders “what if…” My favorite of all the poems in this amazing collection, though, is “Budburst,” which reads, in part, “In my next life, I don’t want to/ be the harvester or the harvest./ I want to be the budburst./ Those velvetlike lobes,/ so diaphanous and sensuous/ in their terrific unwinding – ” Gorgeous words you can sink your teeth into! Congratulations to Denton on another fine collection. And it’s not just me saying that. He got a great review from Publisher’s Weekly, too. I love watching his star rise this way! (And he remains so very humble and approachable. It’s a gift to know him, honestly, as much as it is to read his words…)
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