#ward briggs

[jamesdickey-blog]

James Dickey claimed: 'What I want to do most as a poet is to charge the world with vitality.' … This definitive edition proves that he succeeded.

From the Times Literary Supplement (London) review of "The Complete Poems of James Dickey," edited by Ward Briggs, 25 October 2013.

[jamesdickey-blog]

Ward Briggs on the Ronny Cox "Deliverance" Book

Just read Ronny Cox’s Dueling Banjos: The Deliverance of Drew. Though his editor calls Cox “a world-class storyteller,” there is nothing that resembles something with a beginning, middle, and end. But then the editor herself is no great shakes, allowing him to say “lavolier,” “tension between Jim and I,” and “he was always occasionally pulling our legs.” He criticizes those who “made-up” stories about the production of the film, chiefly those stories retold by Chris Dickey in Summer of Deliverance (which he thinks centers on Chris’s experiences during the making of the film), because “they were not there.” But then he himself does not seem to know the accounts of the director Boorman and star Burt Reynolds who give far more interesting and believable stories. Cox credits himself with being the reason Jim was asked to leave the set, because he complained that instead of calling him “Ronny” Jim insisted on calling him “Drew.” Reynolds and Boorman make it clear that he called all four actors by their role-names and that it irritated all of them. He also claims that before Dickey left the set he gave an hour-long tirade in which he performed as all four characters, then was voted off the set by the actors. Boorman says that he negotiated Dickey's exit in return for playing the sheriff and that Dickey “addressed the men” and told them “It is clear that my presence will be made more efficacious by my absence.” And walked out calmly. At that point Reynolds said, “Does that mean he’s staying or leaving?” Cox does not know the back story of how Reynolds found Billy Redden who played the banjo on the porch nor Cowboy Conrad, the second rapist. He blames “Dickey family spin” for a lot of misinformation, but then he thinks Burt Reynolds played football for Georgia when he actually starred for Florida State. He even misquotes Jim’s famous line about “the land of the nine-fingered men” as “the land of people with nine fingers.” A real disappointment all around.

-- Briggs, a distinguished scholar at the University of South Carolina, posted this on his Facebook page. Briggs's definitive edition of James Dickey's poems is due to be published next year.