The Fool Killer is an enduring figure in Appalachian folklore and oral narratives. Defined as an imaginary or legendary person, the Fool Killer is an archetypal character whose business is destroying fools. One particular Appalachian ethnicity, known as Melungeon, enjoys a rich history of variations on the origin and roleContinue Reading
Hot blooded rose: its per- fumed crimson bed – boudoir for a drunk and dizzying bee amorous and swollen be fore it sped in grainy dark where the sun used to be. Pixilated grains materialize in the likeness of my mother, then ten, swaddling a rose with tenderest of eyesContinue Reading
Cantor, Gauss, Riemann, Euler. Hilbert. Poincaré. Noether. Hypatia. Klein, Minkowski, Turing, von Neumann. Cauchy, Lie, Dedekind, Brouwer. Boole. Peano. Hamilton, Laplace, Lagrange. If you’re unfamiliar with the names and contributions of the theoretical mathematicians in the modern era, then you may find Cormac McCarthy’s latest novel Stella Maris a challengingContinue Reading
The following story, first appeared in The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature. It was so convincing that the editors listed the author as “Edward Lang” instead of “Edward Francisco.” I was named for my great-grandfather, David Lang. David has long been a source of speculation and fascination owing toContinue Reading
His breath is bad: cigarettes and agitated solitude. He stands outside his car excavating shrapnel from his hand, vestiges of a lawnmower blade sharpened cruelly, sparks taking revenge as metal glazed in splinters. The VA doctor, to whom he resents going, says he is lucky the constant picking has notContinue Reading
“I placed a jar in Tennessee” is the first line of Wallace Stevens’ “Anecdote of the Jar,” a modernist poem written in 1918. Stevens’ canon of poetry typically explores the phenomenon of perception and the mind’s tendency to create its own reality. Anecdote of the Jar I placed a jarContinue Reading
From his window view my son seizes a ribbon of morning light that gives him excuse to pause, take measure of the ochre mist shrouding the still-dark presences of trees. He’s riddled in his chest by the sight of rocks splitting the sun’s head, now a wobble on the mountain’sContinue Reading
In my 2016 stage play Which Side Are You On: The Florence Reece Story, I envision a scene at the Highlander Folk School in Monteagle, Tennessee, wherein union activist and songwriter Florence Reece and Civil Rights reformer Martin Luther King, Jr. are discussing ways for opposing violence. The exchange follows:Continue Reading
Revisiting Myles Horton’s The Long Haul The remarkable thing about Myles Horton is that he chose to be a person instead of a personality. As a rising young labor organizer and civil rights activist, Horton was surrounded by personalities – a cadre of forward looking, socially attuned recruits, someContinue Reading
Joel Agee, the son At age 41, Agee had suffered the first of two heart attacks, the second of which would kill him when he was just forty-six, having recently completed his novel A Death in the Family before his death. Agee was contemptuous of moderation, insisting on living lifeContinue Reading