DOGWOOD WINTER?

Folks in middle Tennessee say that if a cold snap occurs when the dogwood blooms, we’ll experience a “dogwood winter,” but nothing has snapped here yet, and the beautiful white inflorescence of numerous dogwoods at Sewanee have been clustering a gracious plenty this last week of March. Typically, the trees bloom in mid-April, frequently as late as May, and a “dogwood winter” sometimes follows close behind the flowering.

Thankfully, the weather during this dogwood blooming is perfect, with sun-filled days when the temps climb only to 70 degrees and slight winds breeze through the Cumberland Plateau. Following the advice of gardeners around Sewanee, we planted a small flower garden in the backyard because locals believe that it is safe to dig in the dirt after dogwoods blossom. However, another note of caution for early planters -- according to farmers and gardeners, a “blackberry winter” occurs when a cold snap coincides with the time blackberries are in bloom, which is typically during early to mid-May. So perhaps we’re not out of the woods regarding weather snaps yet.

Hopefully, the weather and the white blanket of flowers will hold until Easter Sunday because many Christians regard the dogwood flowers as religious symbols of the season. Their white petals symbolize Christ’s white robe, and the red dots on their tips symbolize the blood of the Crucifixion. Also, the dogwood tree is reputed to have provided the wood for the cross on which Christ was crucified. At that time, dogwood trees grew tall; however, because of Christ’s death, the legend states that God stunted the dogwood species to prevent their future use as crosses for crucifixion. As a result, few dogwood trees today can be called “towering” (according to apocrypha that is).

The wood from dogwood trees in this neck of the woods is often used for mountain dulcimers, cane, and for fine inlays, and is also utilized for wine or fruit presses. According to folklore, another former use for dogwood was as a tooth brush. Pioneers moving West would peel off bark, bite the twig, and scrub their teeth, according to Gunn’s Domestic Medicine. However, as a lover of old Western movies, I don’t have much to say about the not-so-good-looking teeth of the heroes portrayed on the big screen. In fact, some of them were toothless (excepting John Wayne, of course)!

The dogwood tree has been adopted as the state flower of Virginia, as well as North Carolina and Sorth Carolina. When I was in my early thirties, my Godmother Dora, who lived in Blacksburg, Virginia, always wanted me to visit her in April when the Virginia woods were dense with dogwood blooms, but I missed the blooming every year. I often think of how she would have loved the Tennessee countryside in the Spring. Sunlight heightens the white blooms of the dogwoods that are at the edge of our small forest, and the trees grow well as understories in the semi-shade. I look at them and think of Oriental poets brushing into life their haiku poems about flowers and feel that early Easter blessings have already come to my province on The Mountain.

Rumi, the famous 13th century Persian poet, penned a few poems about Spring flowers resembling the dogwood blooms. One is entitled “Spring to Christ,” and a snippet is excerpted below:

“…Spring is Christ
raising martyred plants from their shrouds,
their mouths open in gratitude,
wanting to be kissed…”

COWAN, TENNESSEE #2

After visiting the Smithsonian Exhibit, “The Way We Worked,” at Cowan, Tennessee Sunday afternoon, we walked up the main street of town, stopping often to peer in at closed shops. At the “Book Brake,” a bookstore owned by Tom McGee, two men beckoned for us to come in, and we entered the extremely long room that houses used and collectable books. Although we didn’t buy any books, we spent almost an hour talking with proprietor Tom McGee and Tom Wagner, editor of a publication “not affiliated with any group” entitled Cowan Comment. The latter is published six times a year, “one about every other month,” and provides interesting subjects to Cowan citizens and people who visit the community. Wagner’s mission is to encourage people to visit Cowan and to open businesses that will help revive life on Cumberland Street in Cowan. He asked me to contribute guest articles, so I plan to make more forays into the community to find fodder for blogs and informal essays.

McGee gave us free tickets to the Tennessee Antiquarian Book Fair which is held in the Monterrey Station in Cowan each year. Cowan claims the distinction of being the only small town in America with a national book fair. Most of the time these annual antiquarian book fairs are week-end events held in cities such as Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Seattle, Denver, and San Francisco. Last year, over fifty booksellers from more than twelve states participated in the Antiquarian Book Fair in Cowan, and more than a thousand book collectors and readers from throughout the North American continent attended the event. Lectures included Children’s Literacy, the Civil War in Tennessee, and “Book Collecting 101.” Nicholas Basbanes related tales from his book, A Gentle Madness, which included stories about book collectors from antiquity to the 1980’s.

The Monterrey Station that houses the Book Fair was built in the 1920’s and is touted as being one of the largest indoor event complexes in southeastern Middle Tennessee. It was formerly used as a shoe factory and a yarn mill and contains 20,000 sq. ft. This year’s Fair will be held July 21 and 22, prior to the opening of the Sewanee Writer’s Conference here on the campus of the University of the South. Documents concerning the Civil War, the American Revolution, and both World Wars will be showcased, as well as many collectable and rare books, first editions of mysteries, science fiction, and literature. The event will offer a real book feast for bibliophiles! (A copy of the ticket for this event appears at the beginning of this blog.)

Cowan gained its fame as a railroad town, as mentioned in my last blog, but the first settlers were farmers in search of new land and a new life – Scots/Irish immigrants from Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina who came to the area during the 1800’s. During the early 19th century, Cowan was a stage coach stop between Chattanooga and Nashville. Farmers sent their produce to markets by road to the Elk River at Estill Springs, Tennessee where it was shipped by river to ports on the Tennessee and Mississippi Rivers, notably the port at New Orleans. The town was named for Dr. J.B. Cowan, a medical officer on General Forrest’s staff during the Civil War, who is reputed to have given a large area of land to the town. Cowan became a rail center prior to the Civil War when rails were laid from Nashville through the Cumberland Tunnel two and one miles east of the town.

Cowan residents have seen various industries come and go – the Sewanee Furnace which produced 70 tons of pig iron per day at its zenith; the Davis, Hicks and Greene Timber Company that built a railroad over the mountain into Alabama and shipped logs by locomotive; a pusher terminal where special engines helped heavy freights of 125 cars and passenger trains through a tunnel in the Cumberland Mountains so that the cars could start down the opposite side; and farming operations that produced corn and cotton.

I obtained a bit of this information from an article by Dr. Andrew Rittenberry in an issue of the Franklin County Historical Review. He wrote “The City of Cowan has risen from the depths of the backwoods into a prosperous small town with industries and businesses. She possesses a great many hopes for the future: and a love and fondness of her past.” Cowan is a town whose time has come and is poised for revitalization. This Cumberland Valley town resembles many small towns in America that are gaining notice for their uniqueness and for their contributions to American culture and industry.

P.S. Thanks to my good friend and reader, Dr. Mary Ann Wilson, professor of English at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, for yesterday’s comments regarding the first blog about Cowan: “You have such a generous, appreciative voice in your blogs and make the worlds you create so real…”

“EVERYTHING BARREN WILL BE BLESSED”

Pinyon Publishing is rapidly becoming “the poet’s press,” and its latest title, Everything Barren Will Be Blessed by Don Thompson, is a wonderful example of the fine poets featured in this small press’s list. I love Thompson’s collection – it’s a significant landmark on the landscape of poems about the West, from the abstract painting by Susan Elliott on the book’s cover to the rich poems that capture the Southern California desert and fertile valleys. I am particularly inured to this “poetry of place” because it features the area I wandered as a tourist every summer for twenty years.

Don Thompson’s voice is that of a contemplative who can deal with solitude and silence and who is capable of spiritual insights as well as playful composition. I found that the collection enlarged my own passionate observations about the natural world of Southern California. The poems are filled with grace and an audacious imagination. Thompson takes us far, as John C. Van Dyke wrote in The Desert: “…beyond the wire fence of civilization…where the trail is unbroken…”

An example of the poet’s ability to combine playfulness and profundity in four quatrains about the Southern California valley is entitled “Preacher Valley” (which Thompson knows well as he lives on a cotton farm in a house that has been inhabited by four generations of his wife’s family):

“Everything we need to know
has been written in unhurried longhand
between the hills and the sky.
You can trace it with your finger.

It’s all carved in stone, too,
in those jagged musings of freeze and thaw.
Cottonwood and scrub oak
have been pinned to the earth like memos.

It’s even written for us
in the crabbed scrawl of the grass
and the scribbles of tumbleweed—
forever irritated, impatient

because we never notice
and go around muttering discontent,
self-obsessed and oblivious
as if our hearts were illiterate.”

Thompson is also well-acquainted with the wildlife of Southern California, writing about coyotes, hawks, and other bird life; and about the vegetation of pistachio trees and tumbleweeds “bounding along/while little ones hustle to keep up…” His word portraits about animals, particularly coyotes, are both witty and urbane; e.g., “Strangers:”

“Solitary coyotes usually move on
when they see someone coming—
uneasy, though not panicked.

But once, rounding a blind corner
on a winding road
between one nowhere town and another,

we came upon a crowd of them,
two dozen or more,
scattered across a hillside;

and each turned to stare,
fearless, not much interested
to tell the truth—

the way we watch a stranger go by,
wonder where he’s going, if anywhere,
and forget him as soon as he’s gone.”

I read this volume of poetry last night at bedtime and didn’t turn out the light until I had finished reading the last wonderful poem. As the title indicates, poet Don Thompson has blessed the barren landscape of California desert and valley with this collection of accessible poetry about the San Joaquin Valley area. This is a book of poetry that will deepen readers’ perspectives and their sense of connection with nature. The poems are notable for “right” detail and metaphor, as well as memorable images that delight and nourish mind and spirit.


Everything Barren Will Be Blessed is the sequel to Thompson’s Back Road, a collection of poetry that captured the Sunken Garden Poetry Prize for 2008. This is an impressive voice published by an impressive press that has become a real match for 21st century small presses.

Everything Barren Will Be Blessed can be ordered from http://www.pinyon-publishing.com/ or from Pinyon-Publishing, 23847 V66 Trail, Montrose, California 81403