A Country Rag
Word Preserve ~ Volume 3
graphic: Handmade musician and dancer dolls, Southern Highlands Crafts Exhibition, Asheville, NC 
Time and Rhyme (writer pics and poetry)
"But after, when the writing is finished, one looks at the finished thing and has a feeling or conviction of inevitability: I found it, not I made it. It--the story, the novel--had its own laws; I simply followed them--found them and followed them; was smart enough and shrewd enough to find them and follow them; wasn't sidetracked or diverted, which would mean failure, a lesser book. Even with nonfiction, which in the universe of my writing has the same cognitive complexity as fiction, in the aftermath one feels that one has chiseled a pre-existing form (which necessarily has substance attached to it) out of a big, shapeless stone: it was there, I found it. This is an affirmation of skill but not of invention. At best, one feels like a sculptor who knows how to liberate the shape hidden in the marble or clay--or knew the last time but may not know the next, may be careless, may ruin the stone through distraction or stupidity. Once finished, the process of writing becomes opaque, even to the writer. I did it but how did I do it? Can I ever do it again? The brain becomes normal. One can still think, of course, but not with the luminosity that makes intelligence so powerful a tool while writing, nor can one think outside of literal and linear time anymore." -- Autobiography by Andrea Dworkin
A Rustic Refrain"Portrait of a Crow"by Joy Reid "Hairballs" by Daryl Lease "Nana Never Got Naked" by MaryAnn Hazen "Feed Sack Prints" by Polly Taylor "Bolt Upright" by Wilson Roberts "Speakers" by Daryl Lease "The Picnic" by Thomas Lloyd "All About Love, VA" by Bunny Stein
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***By Faith Aloneby Eunice Soper"When Good Became Evil" and "The Mighty Man" "Butter -- Lemonade -- And A Gold Medal" "The Sharp-Tongued Woman" and "The Dark Pebble" "Blue Oatmeal" "The Overcautious Traveler" "The Burned-Out Light" and "The Blind Weaver" "The Uncatchable Sunbeam" "The Power of Man"
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Country Reckoning"Three Poems"by Lori Brenner "Where Mountain Panthers Wait" -- Parts 1 and 2 by Wilson Roberts "Answering the Call of the Wild" by Shenandoah Seasons "Eagle Feather" by Jane Blair "Sanitorium" by Grace Willetts "Strasburg: The Past Lives On..." by Julie Gochenour "The Gunman" by Anon
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***Gloria!"Kaitlyn Walks Alone," "How To Eat Your Young," Interviewby Storm
"Touch of the Master's Hand"
"Mokken Tell"
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***A Muse 'N Toonby Don and Sandy Smith
"Monday Morning"
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Occasional Treats"Prana"by Red Slider "From Day to Dusk" "Walking in Someone Else's Home Town" and "Poultice" by EA Lynch "First Clone" by Jennifer Ley "Reprieve" by Sheldon P. Wimpfen "resurrection dance" by Vera A. Jones and Naki "Love" by Don Muscher "Verse to Music II" by Harold Janzen "Future Fright" by Sheldon Wimpfen
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***Rivers Side"Boone, NC""Hoarfrost at Hallowe'en" by Jeannette Harris
"Communion" "Sunset" "Elixir"
"Confessions"
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***Tales of Jewell Hollowby Gary R. Frink
January, February 1996
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Word Preserve
Archives Volume 2
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graphic: The Chicken Man, oil on canvas, Ginger Stone Studio, Jonesborough, TN
Ginger Stone, reproductions of whose work appear throughout A Country Rag, received art degrees from WVA's Marshall U. and SUNY's Stony Brook. She has taught piano and paint, fiber and weaving skills in NY, CA, NC and TN.
Throughout Appalachia the raising of domestic fowl, for profit and pleasure, retains its charm. Small-scale farming links rural residents to the mythic thread of an ancient agricultural past. During the American Depression, farmers increased production of turkey, quail, guineas and chicken to keep alive asphalt-bound city hordes. Today's market reality of tin-roofed "coops" growing, in just several months from chick to adult, ten thousand or so fowl at a time allows affordable tablefare but misses our ancestors' mystical connection to sustenance.
Where the heck am I?
Original material © A Country Rag April, 1996, 1998. All rights reserved.