I met J. W. Williamson in 2000 when we were both reading papers at a literary conference at Emory and Henry University in Emory, Virginia. I’d read his 1995 book Hillbillyland: What the Movies Did to the Mountains and What the Mountains Did to the Movies, and was looking forwardContinue Reading
For a half century Wendell Berry has been on record defending small communities and local economies, dating back to his 1977 treatise The Unsettling of America, which, as Appalachian author Wilma Dykeman once observed, deserved to unsettle America more than it did. In his roles as poet, essayist, novelist, and,Continue Reading
A poet lived in a serpeant’s mouth where he sat and dispensed wisdom. He was not old but wept frequently. Flowers withered at his touch and dogs scratched their heads at his perplexity. When times got hard (begging no one’s forgiveness), the poet reached into his side from which heContinue Reading
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
We’ve all reached the midpoint of 2023, seen moons and days and times pass like a blur or a telling breeze. Together, our readers, subscribers, and contributors, along with all of us at Appalachia Bare, have lived each moment, weathered every hardship, and basked in many joys. Please forgive thisContinue 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