Jesse Stuart’s “Hie to the Hunters”

Recently on this blog I profiled the noted Appalachian author Jesse Stuart. Stuart, born in Greenup County, Kentucky in 1906, was a prolific writer who published novels, short stories, essays, books for children and youth, and autobiography. His memoir of teaching in rural Kentucky, The Thread That Runs So True, published in 1949, has long…

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A Force of Nature: The Life and Work of Jesse Stuart

He was born in Greenup County, Kentucky, the son of poor parents who moved from one Kentucky hill farm to another, working hard to make the land pay. His father was illiterate. But he would grow up to become a prestigious and highly paid writer who traveled the world and eventually owned all the land…

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Winter in Kentucky, c. 1810

I recently finished reading Robert Penn Warren’s remarkable narrative poem Brother To Dragons: A Tale in Verse and Voices. The poem concerns a real incident that occurred near Paducah, Kentucky—the murder of a slave by Thomas Jefferson’s two nephews in 1811. Robert Penn Warren, who was born in Guthrie, Kentucky in 1905, is the only…

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President Lincoln: Master of American Prose

February 12 marks the birthday of President Abraham Lincoln, who is not only one of our greatest Presidents—perhaps the greatest American President—but one of the great leaders in world history. Lincoln is also arguably the greatest writer among the Presidents. All of our Presidents have left behind a body of writing, usually consisting of policy…

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Thomas Merton’s Christmas-themed poem “The Flight Into Egypt”

The great spiritual writer and Trappist monk Thomas Merton wrote a number of poems in connection with various liturgical days, saints, and Biblical themes and figures. Merton (1915-1968) was a member of the Trappist monastery at the Abbey of Gethsemani near Bardstown, Kentucky. It has been seventy years now since Merton’s first collection of poetry—Thirty…

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Autumn in the Country

“All the signs of the autumn came, the heavy plush-like asters, buckberries and frostflowers, everlasting and chicory–all the last tokens of the living year. The mockingbird would sing a few notes, reminiscent of spring after the quiet of the late summer, and on moonlight nights the cocks would crow all night long. Ellen bought a…

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Poet Richard Hague To Read At Northern Kentucky University

On Thursday, October 23, 2014, noted poet Richard Hague will read from and discuss his new book of poems During The Recent Extinctions: New and Selected Poems 1984-2012 (Dos Madres Press, 2012). Hague is an award-winning poet and essayist in Cincinnati. Born and raised in Steubenville, Ohio, he has published fifteen collections of poetry, as…

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Harlan Hatcher: Buckeye Extraordinaire.

The author Harlan Hatcher was born 116 years ago today on September 9, 1898 in Ironton, Ohio. He lived for nearly a century, dying at the age of 99 in 1998. Harlan Hatcher was a true man of letters: a novelist, editor, historian, and literary critic, as well as a teacher who became a successful…

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