COLD SPRING RISING: John Thomas York

One of our state's best poets has had to be patient for many years before seeing his first full-length collection published.  This spring he was able to hold that book in his hands and celebrate.   Those of you who have followed this blog know that I've devoted several posts to John York's work, so type  his name into the poet's slot to the right of this new post to read more about his poetry.  Go to Press 53's website to order his book, read his biography, and learn more about the artist who created the cover image.


Today's GOOD NEWS is that John and his daughter Rachel will appear at City Lights Bookstore in Sylva, NC this coming Saturday evening, Sept. 1, for a reading from the book and a performance of old ballads by Rachel.

  Drop by at 6:30 for this special event, have John sign some books for you, and stick around for a late supper downstairs at City Lights Cafe.   

Whippoorwill

The clear horizon was fading,

and my father and I sat together

on the warm steps,

cinder blocks painted smooth,

Daddy smelling of cows

and a cigarette, glowing, fading,

when it started, a song

both monotonous and magical,

as if God were plying

a hand pump, a musical 

machine that said, Make-it-Flow!

Make-it-Flow!  

Darkness rising from a deep well

and flooding the woods, the corn field.

I pointed, wanting a name:

“It’s just a whippoorwill, Johnny.

Just a bird, saying, Whippoorwill.”

Still the song rose from the dark,

a siren’s voice, sounding

the alarm for me and my father,

ignorant of any danger,

father-son sitting close on the warm steps

and watching the farm fading into the night.

The Gift

In the morning, getting ready for school, 

she would say, “Look at Mr. Redbird,

such a pretty, vain creature,”

the cardinal pecking at his reflection,

dancing back and forth in the sunlight

on the car’s big bumper.

And in the evening, after milking 

and dinner and the cleaning up, 

Mama sat on a bed 

with us and told stories, or she read

Johnny and His Mule, The Jack Tales,

a Bible story book.

I wanted to read, too,

but some words gave me trouble, 

so she used flash cards:

who. . .where. . .why.

She fed me words until they made

sentence, paragraph, story.

One day, the mailman left

a flat cardboard box, a book about whales,

the blue whale dwarfing

the man who stood beside it,

and fearsome orcas breached into the living

room and roamed over

the gray carpet, where sunlight

was striped by Venetian blinds: 

I turned off the TV for an hour and read 

my book, while my mother grinned 

to herself, as she cleared away her papers,

as she prepared the evening meal.

Penn-Griffin Students Sweep Awards at Phoenix Literary Festival

Rachel Thompson, one of the Student Poet Laureate Award winners in this year's NC English Teacher's Association writing awards, has just received the prestigious Thomas Walter's Award for Literary Excellence. Her teacher, John York, has mentored many young writers over the past years, and Rachel is his third student to win the Walters Award. Rachel's first place poem follows the announcement below. Congratulations to all the students who were recognized for their writing and to John for being such a splendid teacher and poet.

John's Naming the Constellations was published this fall and has been featured on Verse Daily and on facebook's Spring Street Editions page. Follow the link above to read about his book and enjoy some poems from the collection.

Three students from Penn-Griffin school for the arts won prizes at the Phoenix Literary Festival at High Point University on November 19: Cameron Bello received an Honorable Mention for Poetry; Chelsea Hansen, an Honorable Mention for Poetry; and Rachel Thompson, an Honorable Mention for Short Story, First Place for Poetry, and the Thomas Walters Award for Literary Excellence.

The festival, an annual event, is sponsored by the HPU English Department. Students attend workshops led by area writers, as well as a reading by an outstanding writer from the state. This year’s reader was Daniel Wallace, who wrote the novel Big Fish and teaches at Carolina.

The Thomas Walters Award goes to that student who excels in both genres, poetry and fiction, and brings with it a substantial cash prize. The students from Penn-Griffin were sponsored by John York, who teaches English and creative writing at the arts magnet, which is part of Guilford County Schools.

He has published three poetry collections, most recently Naming the Constellations, published by Spring Street Editions of Sylva. Many of his students have won literary awards over the past decade, and Rachel is the third of his students to win the Walters Award.

Grow

His feet sprout roots

that lift him from the ground

till his hair is a cloud

and his limbs harbor finches.

His green fingers

stroke the air

as leaves fall from the sky.

Then the clouds are his tunic.

He pats the nest

on his head.

Birds chirp and jump

onto his fingers.

He grows and grows

till his eyes become stars

and he sees the Sahara

and the glowing North Pole.

He watches big movies:

the birth of a star,

the galaxy collision,

brilliant Andromeda.

He laughs as a comet

streaks his smile.

But the men don’t see stars

only flames, smoke.

He’s not one to mourn,

so he waves and smiles

as the men

torch his feet.

--Rachel Thompson,

Penn-Griffin School for the Arts,

High Point, North Carolina

NAMING THE CONSTELLATIONS: John Thomas York

John York's splendid new book, Naming the Constellations: New Poems, has just been published by Spring Street Editions, in collaboration with Ash Creek Press in Portland, Oregon. York's daughter Rachel painted the cover image for the chapbook, and Fred Chappell, Mark Smith-Soto, and Al Maginnes provided testimonials.

A native North Carolinian, John has served his home state well as both public school teacher and poet. He has received the Teacher of the Year award from the NC English Teachers Association as well as the Poet Laureate Award from the NC Poetry Society. He has published his work in two previous chapbooks, as well as in numerous journals. I've featured him several times in blog posts both on Here, Where I Am and My Laureate's Lasso.

These poems by John Thomas York recall to vivid life a mode of existence that has well nigh disappeared. His pliant lyricism is born from a deep love of country things, country people, and the country itself in the widest meaning of that term. It is a country the poet says he did not return to, "for the land lives in me, the kingdom come." That's true--and what a grand kingdom it is!

--------Fred Chappell

York was born in Winston-Salem in 1953 and grew up on a dairy farm in Yadkin County. He was educated at Appalachian State, Wake Forest, Duke, and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where he earned an MFA in Creative Writing. He has also been a Mellon Fellow at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, as well as a recipient of fellowships from the Council for Basic Education and the National Endowment for the Humanities. For over thirty years he has taught English in the public schools. In 2003 he was named Teacher of the Year by NCETA. John York and his wife, Jane McKinney York, teach at Penn-Griffin School for the Arts, in High Point, a magnet school in the Guilford County system.

His work has appeared in many regional journals, including Greensboro Review: He won that magazine's Literary Award for Poetry in 1985. He has previously published two chapbooks, Picking Out (Nebo Poetry Press, 1982) and Johnny's Cosmology (The Hummingbird Press of Winston-Salem, 1994).

Naming the Constellations is the third book published by Spring Street Editions, of Sylva, NC, in association with Ash Creek Press, of Portland, Oregon. Spring Street has also published chapbooks by Kathryn Stripling Byer and Mary Adams.

(John York, NC Teacher of the Year, at the NC English Teachers Banquet in Winston-Salem)

To order the chapbook, please contact City Lights Bookstore of Sylva:

http://www.citylightsnc.com/

Or you may order directly from the author:

John T. York, 804 Westover Terrace, Greensboro, NC 27408

We at Spring Street Editions do not use amazon.com, preferring to work instead with Indie bookstores at indiebound.com.

Price is $12, plus $2.00 postage.

Visit us on facebook.

Here are three poems from John's new book.

June

One morning, I walked down

the ditch between young corn and shining gravel,

cool white sand

lovely to my uncalloused feet.

I shuffled toward the giant trees hanging

over the road,

walked right into a shower of music,

as strange as the melodies picked up by radio

telescopes--music from the stars.

I couldn’t see any aliens,

but I knew their hymn—how wide the sky

was my rough translation,

or maybe the visitors

were merely chirping, laughing at a dirty

blond boy: a wingless creature,

how slowly and quietly he moves.

I could tell they were the true rulers of the universe,

making radiant the worm,

the grasshopper, the morning glory--

the singers’ babel a blessing,

telling everything to grow.

Puzzle

My father quit the farm

one piece at a time:

Kate, the old mule, gone one day,

no word of her destination,

then the cows, thirty-five Holsteins,

sold to a man who didn’t know their names,

the tractors, the tall John Deere,

the Ford, John’s little buddy,

the wagon rolling on slick tires,

a yellow cultivator splotched by rust,

the antique seed drill,

iron-spoked wheels higher than my head,

a disk harrow, a bull-tongued plow,

the tobacco sleds waiting for summer,

the mowing machine whose teeth

chattered through the alfalfa on the hottest days

and the raking machine that churned

hay into orderly rows,

the manure spreader, orange wagon

splattered black, blades clotted thick,

the two-seated tobacco planter,

its twin trays, belts, and hoses,

the sprinklers, the muddy pump like half

a tractor, the irrigation pipes.

I would come home from school

and the landscape would be changed

in a subtle way

I refused to understand,

the pastures, too quiet, the growing

vacancy in the machinery shed.

One cold Saturday,

my father out for a long haul,

my sister helping my mother pack,

I wandered about the farm,

down to the bridge, along the creek,

the pasture fence, the red boundary flags,

up to the highest hill, where I could look

over the farm and see Mt. Nebo in the distance.

I was looking for a missing piece,

the edges invisible but sharp:

the wind passed through me, as if

I were a wood stove, left there by the road,

the door left open, the wind

lowing over a rusty pipe.

Teaching Time

Jack must’ve climbed a corn stalk--for by the time I heard rumor

of school starting, the rows marched up the hill and the leaders

hid their tassel tops in a cloud’s belly. I would’ve laughed

at gravity and followed Jack, but then Claude Jester came

running from the tobacco barn, just as the wind blew

a wrinkled piece of tin over his head: the thunder

boomed and that was the end of summer: Mom

said, “Soon we’ll need to buy you some green

jeans and new shirts, Johnny,” and I worried

that my friends would have forgotten my

name, it had been so long since May.

That rainy afternoon, Mama let me

play with a clock she used for

teaching time. I spun the

blue minute hand around

the red hours, I dreamed

through the years, until

I had a wife and three

daughters. When the

girls were little, we

liked to go to the

science museum,

and there we

dropped pennies

into a slot that

sent the coins

circling in a big

yellow funnel,

we watched

them gain

momentum,

the years

speeding up,

each penny

finishing in

a blur, a

rising whir,

and then

clink