Jim Webb, "Get In, Jesus: New & Selected Poems," (Wind Publications, 2013) 111 pages, poetry, $13.50 U.S.
"Get In, Jesus" says a 'mountain crazy' who picks up a long haired, bearded hitch-hiker on the Pike/Letcher County (Kentucky) Line. This aptly illustrates
Jim Webb's reputation in Central Appalachia. When people speak of Jim Webb it is almost always in near mythic terms. In fact, the Afterword of the book describes him as if he were some kind of demi-god who strides over, above, and through all. Get out of the way.
There is some truth behind the myth. Webb has on several occasions lost the totality of his earthly possessions to arson - including his entire poetic oeuvre up to that point - due to his persistent outspokenness against Mountaintop Removal and other injustices in Central Appalachia. He invented an alter-ego persona called Wiley Quixote for newspaper commentaries, a play, and finally
Appalshop's community public radio station
WMMT-FM. He is a member of SAWC (Southern Appalachian Writers Cooperative). He is, beyond any doubt, at the top of the poet-ladder in Appalachia. Through his work with Appalshop and WMMT-FM, he has supported and spring-boarded almost every artist, musician, writer, and poet in the region over the last 30 years. As if that were not enough, he owns half of Pine Mountain where he runs Wiley's Last Resort. Among the regional artistic community, he is spoken of as if he brought about the Appalachian Modern Movement (a.k.a. the Appalachian Renaissance) single-handedly.
This giant reputation has made a giant of a man - physically small in stature, but when he gets on a roll about something he's passionate about he seems to literally grow taller and darker with the sheer overwhelming energy and force of that passion like Gandalf in J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings". Few are able to withstand the heat; most I've seen cower and comply. This trait, along with the very strongly entrenched cultural maxim to "respect your elders", accounts for the over-reverence that the artistic community in Central Appalachia has for Webb. He's like a bull: a quiet, watchful, mostly benign type - until you climb his fence, so to speak.
That trait comes across loud and clear in his poetry. This is a book written with the blood of rage. At first, I wasn't much impressed. On paper, it seemed to rely almost entirely on puns in the vernacular (for it is written mostly in the Appalachian language or dialect), pure and unadulterated anger, and bombast. But as the book progressed, I began to notice a very strong assonant play. Vowels are everything to the music of Webb's words. For the most part, though, this stuff is written to be raw and even ugly - ugly like the fire and brimstone running in Webb's veins, ugly like a stripped carcass shell of a decapitated mountain. Webb screams rebukes in so many directions it makes one dizzy and prone to headache. I find it ironic that a man who is so completely irreverent toward everything Appalachian should be the subject of so much awe by Appalachians. The worst of his vitriol is reserved for King Coal and the "Greed Heads" who rape the rainforest into pockets of desert. He tends to punctuate all this with sarcastic scatting in the same tradition as when someone mockingly says "well, whoop-de-doo!"
By the time I finished reading the book, I was convinced that Webb has secured for himself a forever mythic standing in Central Appalachian poetics in much the same way that Sylvia Plath is remembered less for her words and more for her suicide. The regional artistic community has forgotten something. And it's possible that maybe even history will forget it, too. What has been forgotten? Simply that a phenomenon such as the Appalachian Renaissance (Appalachian Modern Movement) is too big to be caused by one man. T.S. Eliot is often called the "Father of Modern poetry", but there would have been no such thing as a school of poetry if he alone had practiced it. Similarly, Jim Webb is called the "Godfather of Appalachian poetry" (interesting that even here the word "god" gets inserted), but there is a whole generation of artists, musicians, writers, and poets that make up this movement known variously as the Appalachian Renaissance and the Appalachian Modern Movement. Without them, this moment in history wouldn't be happening. Whether they realise it or not, they carry Jim Webb just as much as he carries them. And despite the towering dark preacher of madness (in the American sense of "anger") that comes out so easily, part of Webb knows this.
The only tell, however, are the closing lines of the book from the title poem (which is available on T-shirts if you'd like to wear it as a manifesto - many do):
"Are you really Jesus?"
he says with a sawmill smile
I smile back
"If I was Jesus
You think I'd be
thumbin'?"
We all grin,
wheels spin,
gravels fly,
the dust
settles"
Get the book here at
Amazon.
Note: Formatting of the poem was not preserved in this article. This is beyond my control.
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