AN APPALACHIAN MOTHER GOOSE

by James Still ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1998

A gatherer of folklore puts a backwoods twist on familiar nursery rhymes--""Jack Pratt would not eat fat,/His wife would not eat lean,/If baked opossum was on the table/They both ate as long as able""--to which Johnson's figures, in comically ingenuous black-and-white vignettes and full-page drawings, add a suitably rural air. Catfish, sugar-tits, moonshine, ""Jockey Day,"" and griddle cakes fit into the rhymes as if they'd been there all along; Still's language, his brand of irony, and some of his ideas (Peter Pumpkin Eater's wife sells ""bows and bells/And now she keeps him very well"") have a contemporary tone that takes the collection beyond a literary exercise. It's not entirely new, but there's a distinctively personal, as well as regional, flavor that is very gratifying.

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1998

ISBN: 0813120926

Page Count: 64

Publisher: Univ. Press of Kentucky

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1998

Categories: POETRY