River Bends and Meanders (review)

Abstract

could in his poem "A Closer Look." Three females in his life type their names on the paper in his typewriter, below which he adds, "they did not know/that I would react by making them look/like a poem." That's the thing, you see, looking like a poem and sounding like and being a poem are quite different things. Thomas's true strength comes from those things he loves: words and mountains. His love for the land on which he lives and thrives is as evident as his love for poetry. As I mentioned above, Thomas is highly influenced by the poetry of Jim Wayne Miller, and he dedicates one of the poems in this volume to Miller. The poem houses one of the best images in the volume: When I was too close to my heritage to recognize it & use the material of generations that I carried around with me like circles within a tree, you cut the tree & raked my fingers across the stump. Now that's an image! There are other such morsels in Thomas's book which are well worth sampling. Thomas is at his best when he writes about the complexities of the simple. Miller once wrote about the "knowledge you fondle like loose skin on a dog's neck." The simile and its meaning are inextricably and inexpressibly linked by something greater than the words which are used. When Thomas, too, gets hold of these connections, he gets hold of the reader, and as he says in "Intimate," "There is a quickening,/a thrill that runs through the insides/like water down a mountain slope." —B. Ann Quails William E. Ellis. River Bends and Meanders. Burnsville, North Carolina: Celo Valley Books, 1992. 150 pages. $11.95. With the intention of writing a history of the Kentucky River basin, Ellis's research involved interviewing over 150 people who lived and/or worked on the river. The history book will have to wait. What has developed from his 65 research, so far, is a collection of good social history combined with solid research. River Bends and Meanders is a collection of fictional stories about life on the peaceful, resourceful, and sometimes seemingly demonic river. William E. Ellis is surprisingly more than a historian, for his tales of individual lives pulled me in as a reader. I felt I was right there on that poleboat in 1886 trying to maneuver among the sand bars and deep waters and having supper at a river boarding house. One of my favorite pastimes as a child was fishing for catfish. I still enjoy a good fighting trout, so reading "Big Boy" really reeled me in. "That cat must weigh fifty pounds if he weights a ounce. I ain't got no gaff or net. He's bigger'n the big one they said was caught at Beattyville ten years ago." Rufus had caught the biggest cat that ever came out of the Kentucky River. Ellis pays an honorable tribute to the dialect of the mountain people by trying to capture the voice and pronunciations as so few speak today. It certainly adds a flair of the times and of the people. It wasn't just what they said that was captivating but how tiiey thought and where they had been. Like any relationship built on sharing hard work and sweat, the friendships among the river men were a special bond all their own. One Ellis expounded on was between Sam and Rannal; Sam being the only black man on the Pool 8 snagboat crew. Sam was known as the best cook on the river and there were men that were willing to quit their jobs if it meant working on the snagboat without Sam's cooking. "He was a firm believer that a working man needed his greens each day." The Army paid for the cleaning of Pool 8 of obstructions at a dollar a day wages plus expenses; they paid, too, for two sticks of dynamite never accounted for 'cause Sam and Rannal did a litde night fishing in the river. That fishing dinner was enjoyed by all of them with comments like "Sam, you the best nigger cook...