I often use social media to encourage my friends to pray for the mountains, or to contact their legislators to protect the mountains. Those posts don't always get a lot of comments, but sometimes someone will ask me in person, "WHAT are you talking about?" So here's a bit of background information, and a great music video that helps explain. Living on a very flat piece of middle Tennessee, I'd never heard of a mining process called mountaintop removal (MTR) until I started attending writing … [Read more...]
What’s All This Praying and Politicking for the Mountains About, Anyway?
January 5, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Yay! A New Year, and My 2011 Favorites in Books, Music and Techy Stuff
December 30, 2011 By 7 Comments
On Christmas morning, each of us Wells found a different Yay! LiFE! magnet in our stocking. As they congregated on our fridge later in the day (undoubtedly holding out hope for a bite of yay! sausage balls! or yay! eggnog!), I realized that they are an astonishingly simple but enthusiastic expression for most of the passions in my life: Yay! Books! was in my stocking and of course represents my love for reading and writing both prose and poetry. Favorite fiction I read in 2011: The Night … [Read more...]
A Child’s Poem Inspires My Prayer for the Mountains
December 26, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Recently in a used book store, I came across a small volume entitled Chrysalis by Harry Behn. Although the book had a worn and yellowed jacket, its subject matter – children and poetry – and a quick thumb-through convinced me to purchase it to read for myself and share with a friend. It has a number of delightful stories and insights, but one particularly stuck with me. Behn tells of working with a group of children in which one little boy shares this poem: Did you think about the … [Read more...]
A Christmas Poem
December 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment
My poem "And This Will Be a Sign" has been published by the Christian Science Monitor. You can read it here. I wrote the poem last Christmas season after spending some time in the picturesque town of Bell Buckle, Tennessee - a place where, for me at least, even the Christmas rush is at a more relaxed pace. (Although, if you visit Bell Buckle on one of their big festival weekends, such as the RC and Moon Pie Festival in June or the Webb School Art and Craft Fair in October, you'll find it … [Read more...]
Cameo: Art, History, War, Beauty (and a Poetry Book Giveaway)
December 7, 2011 By 9 Comments
I take it to be a shortcoming of my suburban sensibilities, but I frequently have trouble with the concept of beauty existing in war, violence, death and destruction, and other seemingly tragic events throughout history. Evidently I'm not alone, as this recent article by Yeuran Zhang in Duke University's The Chronicle suggests. In it, Lt. Col. Peter Kilmer, assistant professor at the United States Military Academy, says: ...because the public generally views war only as violent, soldiers can … [Read more...]
Bound for the Blue Plate Special
December 4, 2011 By Leave a Comment
On Monday, December 19th, poetry and roots music from the edge of Appalachia will be taking to the airwaves and cyberspace when Kelsey and I appear on Knoxville WDVX's Blue Plate Special program along with Tennessee poet laureate Maggi Vaughn and Sweet Fancy Moses, the band that Kelsey's in. The one-hour show broadcasts live before a studio audience at noon EST from the Knoxville Visitors Center on the corner of Gay Street and Summit Hill Drive in downtown Knoxville. We're hoping a number of … [Read more...]
Don’t Forget This Song: Celebrating the Carter Family and Other Roots Musicians
November 26, 2011 By Leave a Comment
You may forget the singer, but don’t forget the song, the Carter Family bade listeners of one particularly mournful tune they recorded more than eighty years ago. The writer of those lyrics needn’t have worried. Today the songs of America’s roots music are not only remembered but thriving – in forms that both recreate the authentic sound and remake it in fresh ways – in the widely diverse Americana music genre. These old songs continue to spark artists of all types, yours truly … [Read more...]
A New Site
November 22, 2011 By 2 Comments
After more trials and errors, fits and starts, and re-reading of FAQs than this computer science major would like to admit, I'm excited to announce that my all-new integrated website and blog is live. It's got enough gadgets and widgets to make Tim the Tool Man Taylor of the old TV show Home Improvement grunt in approval: online ordering for my books, social media buttons, options to deliver blog posts by email or reader feed, and an email newsletter signup. Recently I was giving some thought … [Read more...]
Poetry Book Giveaway and Talk with Irene Latham, The Color of Lost Rooms
January 30, 2011 By 16 Comments
I'm not sure if it's a late new year or an early Valentine's here on my blog, but I’m excited to be celebrating any day with a poetry book giveaway. The book is THE COLOR OF LOST ROOMS, a new collection from Irene Latham. I’m a big fan of Irene’s first full-length poetry collection, WHAT CAME BEFORE, which was named Alabama State Poetry Society's Book of the Year and earned a 2008 Independent Publisher's (IPPY) Award. More recently, she’s been attracting a lot of attention with her debut … [Read more...]
My Favorite Things of 2010
December 13, 2010 By 5 Comments
For reasons I won't go into, 2010 has not been my favorite year. But, inspired by the year-end list posted by fellow Tennessee writer Susan Cushman on her Pen and Palette blog, I've realized there have been plenty of things I've enjoyed, especially in the area of books and music. So here are my personal favorites of 2010, which I share in hopes that you might find something here that will inspire you. Happy reading, happy listening, happy following your muse. POETRY Favorite new poetry … [Read more...]
