#jesse stuart

[themightythornicus]

A customer brought in this calligraphy piece of a poem and it spoke to me so deeply. Apparently the author was named Poet Laureate of Kentucky in the 50s. Anyways, I scoured the internet for the source of this poem and couldn’t figure out when/where it was published. The poem reads:

“May I be dead when all the woods are old

And shaped to patterns of the planner’s minds.

When great unnatural rows of trees unfold

Their tender foliage to the April winds.

May I be dead when Sandy is not free,

And transferred to a channel not it’s own

Water through the years that sang for her and me

Over the precipice and soft sandstone…

Let wild rose be an epitaph for me

When redbirds go and helpless shrikepokes must

And red beans on the honey-locust tree

Are long forgotten banners turned to dust…

I weep to think these hills where I awoke

Saw God’s great beauty, wonderful and strange

Will be destroyed, stem and flower and oak,

And I would rather die than see the change.”

-Jesse Stuart

[linusjf]

Jesse Stuart: Writing

Jesse Stuart Memorial Bridge over the Greenup Locks & Dam (Ohio River) (Photo credit: Wikipedia) “Write something to suit yourself and many people will like it write something to suit everybody and scarcely anyone will care for it.” —Jesse Stuart.

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[ifthecreekdontrise]

And for the soil of Kentucky, That is filled with bluegrass beauty That is not akin to poetry .. But is poetry… And when I go beyond the border, I take with me growth and beauty of the seasons, The music of wind in pine and cedar tops, The wordless songs of snow-melted water When it pours over the rocks to wake the spring. I take with me Kentucky embedded in my brain and heart, In my flesh and bone and blood Since I am of Kentucky And Kentucky is part of me.

Jesse Stuart

[writingadviceandwisdom]

Write something to suit yourself and many people will like it; write something to suit everybody and scarcely anyone will care for it.

Jesse Stuart

[cncarrz]

Let her know rugged beauty inwardly, Not artificial beauty second-hand; Let her be free as mountain wind is free To know, observe, and love her native land. Let her touch the rugged bark of sister trees, Pull percoon petals and tear them apart To feel and see the beauty that’s in these To make food for her growing brain and heart. Let her know mandrake and the sawbriar tendril And wild sweet-williams growing in the cove; And let her have strong legs to climb the hill And let her have a heart and brain to love. Let her blow milkweed furze across the meadow And course each runlet to the valley stream; Let her run for a spring clouds shifting shadow- Give her the world and time wherein to dream.

Poems For My Daughter, No. 5 - Jesse Stuart

[robbersandcowards]

I heard the sirens call, deep within the oceans crawl. And I know that I'm better off there.

Jesse Stuart

[queenofsquander-blog-blog]

In honor of National Poetry Day, an excerpt from Jesse Stuart’s “Kentucky Is My Land.”

“Kentucky is my land. It is a place beneath the wind and sun In the very heart of America. It is bounded on the east, north, and west by rivers And on the south by mountains. Only one boundary line is not a natural one, It is a portion of southern boundary That runs westward from the mountains Across the delta lowlands to the Mississippi.

Within these natural boundaries is Kentucky, Shaped like the mouldboard on a hillside turning-plow. Kentucky is neither southern, northern, eastern, nor western, It is the core of America. If these United States could be called a body, Kentucky can be called its heart.”

[bieristgut]

“ Now I shall take the chance to spin a rhyme

and I shall let the fences go unmended,

I shall not dream of any future time

When the strength of hand and power of brain are ended.

I shall consider not the fallow field

But I shall leave it for others to plow.

It is not time to think of plowing now, 

For other can do work upon the field---

Now let them do it while I write a rhyme, 

I speak of them and color of the clay,

I speak of men that live in my lifetime,

And I speak of the men of yesterday.

I do not care to know if this is art---

These common words born in a common heart.