
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, April 15, 1995                   TAG: 9504170026
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-9   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: ROBERT FREIS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG                                LENGTH: Medium

APPALACHIAN POET, NOVELIST TELLS AUDIENCE, 'I'M JUST A STORYTELLER'

It's a wonder, says James Still: All the prominent writers he's rubbed shoulders with during his long life - Carson McCullers, Katherine Anne Porter, Robert Penn Warren - are dead now, and their books are mostly out of print.

Next year, however, with the reissue of a book of his poetry, everything 89-year-old Still has published between covers sturdier than a magazine's will be freshly available.

"The truest and most remarkable poet that the mountain culture has produced," in James Dickey's opinion, Still came to Virginia Tech on Thursday to read from his works and talk about his life. The visit was also an opportunity for Still to spend some time with his old buddy, Appalachian photographer and Christiansburg resident Earl Palmer.

Students in the Appalachian Folk Culture class at Tech toted new copies of "River of Earth," Still's celebrated 55-year-old novel about an Eastern Kentucky family, to sit at the feet of the venerable writer.

"People ask me, 'So what keeps a book alive?' I'm not quite sure," Still told them. "I'm just a storyteller."

Yet Still is known for conveying those stories with simple fidelity and vivid detail. His works are devoid of the exaggeration, sentimentality or bias that characterizes much of Appalachian-based literature.

"River of Earth," for example, tells about seasons of a young boy's life during the depths of the Depression. Some critics say it rings just as true as John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" as a portrayal of hard times in the 1930's.

The boy's father ekes out a living working in the coal mines or stone quarries when work is available, and subsists off the land when it is not. It's the same hardscrabble life led by many local families in the first four decades of this century, when coal mining was Montgomery County's largest employer.

"I lived that way, too," while the book was being written, Still said. "I nearly froze to death two winters in that old log house."

Still's rise to literary prominence began when he sold short stories - later incorporated into "River of Earth" - and poems to national magazines such as The Atlantic. One year he placed second in a national short-story contest. The winner was a fellow named Faulkner, whose short story became the first chapter of his novel "The Hamlet."

"Some people said my story was the best. I thought so, too," Still told the Tech students, his voice a wry, smoky rumble.

Over the years, he's been a free-lance writer, a librarian, an English professor and the recipient of many fellowships and honors, while consistently if not frequently producing verse and tales. The various recognitions have given Still the opportunity to nourish his wanderlust. Yet he always returns to live in Mallie, Ky., and to write about the land and its people.

These days, he says, "I've outlived everyone I used to know. I'm sure there is something wrong with me [physically]. But I don't know what."

Inspired by the example of William Blake, Still has composed his own obituary. He won't recite it, but says the requiem is a characteristically spare four lines long. "It's good. Besides, no one else would get it right."

by CNB