Photography – Lemuria Books

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Author Q & A with Michael Ford

On June 2, 2019

In Photography, Southern Culture, Southern History

Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (June 2)

Pennsylvania native Michael Ford will tell you that his “snap decision” nearly 50 years ago–to ditch a dream job offer in Massachusetts, uproot his family, and move to Oxford, Miss. to pursue a hunch–turned out to be the best decision he ever made, as he launched his dreams that would ignite a successful and fulfilling career.

Now a filmmaker in Washington, D.C., Ford’s photo essays in his new book North Mississippi Homeplace: Photographs and Folklife (University of Georgia Press) reveal his passionate reverence for the area he has come to call his “homeplace.”

The unique volume contains only two chapters: one about moving to rural Mississippi and living in Oxford from 1972 to 1975; and the other explaining what brought him back multiple times four decades later. It includes scores of color photos taken during both periods. Ford notes that all these images–taken decades apart–invariably settled into three main themes: the land, the light and the people.

The materials he recorded for the documentary film he produced during his Mississippi stay are now archived in the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress as The Michael Ford Mississippi Collection.

During your first trip to visit in-laws in Oxford in December 1971, you made a quick decision to leave a secure teaching position at Boston’s Emerson College and move to Oxford with the idea of making a documentary film. Explain how this came about.

Michael Ford

I was working on my thesis film for my master’s program in film at Boston University. We had to design a master’s project and I had considered something about rural America, maybe in Vermont or New Hampshire.

When I began exploring the land (around the outskirts of Oxford) during that Christmas break, I had no reference for what I saw–the remoteness, the country shacks, the hogs’ legs hoisted in tree branches for gutting. I had studied (photography history) and I knew things like this shouldn’t exist in America anymore. I had done hard news for two years, and I knew there was a story here.

So, four months later, here I was, a Yankee, driving into Mississippi in an old VW bus with a peace sign on it and New York plates. I was just beginning to figure out that everyone might not like us so much. I began settling in with a deep immersion into the Mississippi hill country. I started reading Faulkner. I spent maybe six months driving and talking to people, getting a cold drink, and sometimes taking their pictures.

My number one anchor to the community was (Oxford blacksmith) Mr. (Morgan Randolph) Hall, who hired me as his apprentice. Number two was Hal Waldrip, who owned and ran an archaic general store in Chulahoma, Miss. He saw himself as one of the “keepers of the lore.” He told me, “I could fix this store up. I could add air conditioning and heat and clean it up. But it would lose some of the atmosphere.”

There were others–Doc Jones, who sold molasses at Waldrip’s store; AG Newson, who actually made the molasses with the help of his mules, Frank and Jake.
These were the people I found. They found me. They were important because they were all preserving this last flash of old times.

Tell me what you discovered about Mississippi–and yourself–as you began to capture the images in your book.

I had no idea this kind of life still existed in the U.S. anymore. I was making an independent documentary. You couldn’t make any preconceived ideas about where it was going. It designed itself. You can shape and interpret it, but you can’t invent it.

I realized that in a concrete sense when it came time to write it. It was the essence of the documentary–the experiences of the intuitive or spiritual side of life–that I wanted to share.

So, one of the things I had to learn as a documentarian was to shut up, that is, shut up the (analytical) left side of the brain, so the (creative) right side can do what it needs to do. I learned over the years that the best situation I could ask for was to shoot something and say, “I got it!” You just know. Words define a thing, but a photograph speaks for itself.

You write that your return visits to Mississippi in 2013-2015 were initially driven by nostalgia and curiosity. How did these trips of new discovery turn out?

What really sparked it were several things that came together at once. My grown daughter, who was a baby when we moved to Oxford, was insisting I do something with my film and audiotapes from Mississippi before I “croaked,” in her words; and technology had advanced to a point that I could do much of the work myself. That stuff had sat for 40 years in cans and boxes in my closets–not forgotten, but definitely ignored.

While reviewing old audio tapes, I listened to a recording of Mr. Hall talking to me. Out of nostalgia I Googled his name and (wound up getting) in touch with Andy Waller, an apprentice of Mr. Hall’s after I left Oxford. Andy had bought Mr. Hall out when he retired.

(That conversation) convinced me there was no doubt it was time to return . . . That was in April 2013. I’ve been back another half dozen times since then.

What I discovered was that it was different. The country people were gone, especially the older people. The sense of community had diminished. Today, even as far out as you can go in the country, you have can have a TV satellite and the internet. Having a place where people get together is difficult. There is not a downtown in most of these communities anymore.

The old way of life was mostly gone forever.

What did you ultimately learn from this whole unique experience, and how has it affected your life and career?

Two answers: one would be “everything.” It has affected everything. I lived where I’ve lived and done what I’ve done all because of it. I started my own film production company, Yellow Cat Productions, which I’ve had for 45 years. Maybe it taught me that I learned to take risks.

On our 1972 trip headed (from Massachusetts) to move to Mississippi, we stopped in New York and visited with (a friend). At that time, it felt in some ways like we were going to a land of darkness, chasing something I barely knew existed and wasn’t sure what to expect.

I told (my friend) that I wasn’t really sure why I should do this, and she said, “Why not?”

Everything changed at that instant. It was like I got it. I learned that when you look back, you see that it’s the single microseconds, not the big bangs, that change the course of a life.

I see the world in patterns, visually, and this is the way Mississippi works in my mind. Mississippi has a special place in this world.

Author Q & A with James T. Campbell and Elaine Owens

By Guest Author

On April 28, 2019

In Civil Rights, Photography, Southern Culture, Southern History

Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (April 28)

It was the teamwork of Stanford professor James T. Campbell and Elaine Owens, the former head curator of photographs at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, that resulted in the publication of a significant photography collection that was almost swept aside by history.

Mississippi Witness: The Photographs of Florence Mars (University Press of Mississippi) showcases images taken in and around Neshoba County in the 1950s and ’60s by civil rights activist Florence Mars of Philadelphia, Miss., during a turbulent time in the state’s history. The volume is filled with stunning black and white photos and a comprehensive and informative introduction by Campbell.

Former governor William Winter, a friend of Mars, has said her pictures “spoke volumes,” and calls this book “an important volume in this period of our nation’s history.”

How did the idea of producing this book come about, and how did the two of you get together?

James Campbell and Elaine Owens, courtesy of the Greenwood Commonwealth

Campbell: I first learned about the photographs from Florence Mars herself. I was doing research related to the 1964 Mississippi Summer Project and naturally found my way to Neshoba County and, soon enough, to Miss Mars. I had an opportunity to interview her several times before her passing in 2006, and in one of those conversations she told me about her photos, which she had deposited at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History in Jackson.

Owens: Prior to my retirement, I worked as head curator of photographs at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. That’s where I met Dr. Campbell. We agreed that Mars’s photographs should be shared with the public and a book was the best way to do that.

Tell me about Florence Mars, and the historical significance of the story behind her photographs.

Owens: The majority of the photographs were taken between 1954 and 1964. According to Mars herself, they were prompted by the landmark Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education (in 1954), which signaled the end of legal segregation in the South. Her intent was to document a Jim Crow world that she knew was disappearing. She had no idea that she and her community would later be caught up in one of the most notorious events of the whole Civil Rights era.

Campbell: One thing I found interesting was that Mars made virtually no effort to publish or exhibit her photos. To the best of our knowledge, she never sold one for money. But she spent hours traveling around the countryside taking photographs, and hours more printing the images in the homemade darkroom she built in an upstairs hall of her house. They were her private devotion, her way of making sense of the world around her.

Explain why your book is titled Mississippi Witness.

Owens: Mississippi Witness is meant to echo the title of Ms. Mars’s own book, Witness in Philadelphia, which was published by LSU Press in 1977.

Campbell: The title of Mars’s book is kind of a pun. On one hand, the book is her first-person account of the events of 1964, of the murders and their aftermath in her hometown. But she was also a witness in another sense, when she agreed to testify in a federal trial that exposed local law enforcement’s brutal treatment of black citizens. She paid a real price for that decision.

Owens: Our book, Mississippi Witness, shows Ms. Mars acting as a witness in yet another sense, as a photographer.

The pictures literally “speak for themselves,” as they are presented, just one per page, on 101 of the 134 pages in the book, with no text at all. The “List of Photographs” in the back reveals that many of the subjects are unidentified; and some photos have no date listed–not even the year. Why did you decide to present the photos in this dramatic way?

Owens: We were simply trying to honor the photographer’s intent, to let the images, as you say, speak for themselves.

Campbell: We included such identifying information as we had in an appendix at the back of the book, but we decided not to have any accompanying text with the pictures themselves, nothing to pull your eye away from the image. I think it was the right decision.

As for not knowing who some of the people in the images are or when particular photos were taken: I suppose that’s true, but by the standards of a lot of documentary photography collections–the Depression-era images of the Farm Security Administration photographers, for example–what’s striking about Mars’s photos is how much we do know. She noted where many of the photos were taken and she recorded the names of at least some of the people in them. She knew a lot of these people personally–Neshoba County is not a very big place–and she routinely shared prints of the images with her subjects, which is something too few photographers think to do.

Jim, please tell me what your primary role was in the production of this book, and why this project was important to you. The history you present in the introduction is very through!

Campbell: Thank you. Mars herself used to say that in order to understand someone you needed to “know the background.” So hopefully the introduction helps people to understand a bit about who she was and how the photographs came to be. But the real value of the book is to be found in the photos themselves. They are just haunting–beautiful and heart-rending all at the same time. They capture truths about our history–not just the history of Mississippi, but American history as a whole–that we need to face squarely.

Elaine, please tell me what your primary role was in the production of this book, and why this project was important to you. You must have searched out a great many details in collecting and curating these photos!

Owens: As curator of photographs at MDAH, I’ve looked at a lot of photographs of Mississippi, but few if any collections have the depth and scope of the images in the Mars collection. We spent many hours debating which images to include in the book. We wanted images that evoked particularities of time and place, but we also wanted to show Mars’s strengths as a documentary photographer, not only her unfailing eye but also her technical skill. I just felt that these images needed to be shared. I also wanted to honor the courage of one woman who stood up to powerful forces of evil at great personal risk.

Signed copies of Mississippi Witness are still available at Lemuria’s online store.

Haunting Mississippi images in Florence Mars’ ‘Mississippi Witness’

By Guest Author

On February 25, 2019

In African-American, Civil Rights, Photography, Southern History

By Jim Ewing. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (February 24)

Many recall Florence Mars from her groundbreaking book Witness in Philadelphia, her personal account of the upheaval that surrounded her native Philadelphia, Mississippi, in the wake of the murder of three civil rights workers in 1964.

But perhaps little known until now with the publication of Mississippi Witness: The Photographs of Florence Mars, it’s revealed that Mars was a talented photographer, as well.

James T. Campbell, a Stanford University professor, writes in an excellent introduction to the photos that Mars only started photographing her surroundings after the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education outlawing separate but equal schools. Mars writes that she recognized that the world in which she was living was soon to be a thing of the past and wanted to capture it on film.

The photos, curated by Elaine Owens, recently retired from the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, were mostly taken from 1954 to 1964.

Mars was not a professional photographer, though she exhibits mastery of the form in her work. Rather, she was born into relative wealth in Neshoba County, her family owning thousands of acres of land, a livestock auction, and a mercantile business in the county seat.

Like Eudora Welty, a writer who also picked up a camera and chronicled the people, places and things around her during the Depression two decades before, she applied her own knowledge and interests to her work. And, like Welty, the photos were published in definitive form only years after they were taken.

As Campbell writes, the “similarities in their circumstances and sensibilities are obvious. Single white women, they lived at once inside and outside the confines of the conservative, racist, patriarchal society. Solitary by nature, both understood the yearning for connection. Acutely observant, both saw the wonder in ordinary life, the aching beauty that survived the ugliness.”

Many of the photos are simply haunting. While most are portraits without name, background or explanation, they are environmental in that the elements of the photos tell a great deal—perhaps more than simple words can tell.

For example, one shows a young black girl facing the camera in a cotton field where the stalks tower over her. At her feet, dragged behind, is a cavernous cotton sack filled to near bursting by the bolls she has picked, perhaps weighing as much as herself. The expression on her face is at once sad and defiant, resigned, proud and beaten. It is the face of a child living the life of a hardworking adult, too young to be careworn, too old to be that of a child.

In another, a young black woman is washing clothes in a galvanized tub, her hands gnarled by the work, her face a portrait in stoicism, scrubbing out dirt.

Others include:

White jurors taking a break in the Emmett Till trial, which Mars attended. Their casual, exasperated looks don’t exactly telegraph a fair hearing.
A white performer in grinning black face entertaining lounging white farmers in overalls at the stockyard at Philadelphia.
A young black woman washing naked white children on a porch at the Neshoba County Fair, 1955. In the notes section at the end of the book, the authors relate that Mars had penciled a caption on the back of the print: “Certain things are taken to be self-evident.”

Mars, Campbell writes, stopped taking photos after the civil rights workers were killed, as “the tense atmosphere made photography difficult.” In its stead, Mars confided “writing took over from the photography in the middle of my life.”

Her Witness in Philadelphia was published in 1977. She died in 2006.

Mars’ photographs are as she intended, an enduring testament to a time in Mississippi long gone. Printed on heavy stock in a large format, they are a rare treasure.

Jim Ewing, a former writer and editor at the Clarion Ledger, is the author of seven books including his latest, Redefining Manhood: A Guide for Men and Those Who Love Them.

James T. Campbell and Elaine Owens will be at Lemuria on Wednesday, February 27, at 5:00 p.m. to sign copies of and discuss Mississippi Witness.

Rachel Cobb’s ‘Mistral’ depicts photographer’s unyielding chase to catch the uncatchable

By Guest Author

On January 15, 2019

In Photography, Travel

By Ellen Rodgers. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (January 13)

It is immediately evident upon viewing Mistral by Rachel Cobb the amount of passion and doggedness it would require to chase something that is unseen. The wind, for all intents and purposes is invisible. What we really see when viewing the wind is the effects it has on an area.

The Mistral is the wind that plagues Provence, as southern California is plagued by the Santa Ana winds. Over centuries of living in the region, the natives of Provence have learned ways to account for the strong and sudden wind.

Mrs. Cobb started documenting the Mistral in the late 1990s. She began it in a local library in Provence pouring through old books looking for anything about the wind. Over the years, between her assignments with various newspapers and magazines she would travel back to make photos of the wind.

Eventually, she realized she needed to be immersed in the area to make any headway on this project. She, her husband, and their young son moved overseas to Provence. Cobb eludes to the length of time spent on this project, “I started this story using Kodachrome film and digging through a small-town library, and I have finished it using a digital camera and the Internet”.

Cobb’s photographs depict the way people prepare for these sudden and strong gusts of wind, which have been recorded to last up to 65 hours. 2-kilogram weights hold a door open; stones are placed on top of the tile shingles; upside down glasses weigh down tablecloths; paperweights, and plastic clips hold a table edge; cement rings placed on the bottom of wheeled gift card racks keep them from rolling away; the eaves of houses show the multiple layers of roof tiles sometimes number up to four; and the north side of buildings are without windows. That’s the windward side.

Images of fauna show how the wildlife of the region prepares for and copes with the mistral. A horse squints its eyes as a strong wind blows its mane. Spiders position their webs so they are less exposed to the wind, while other spiders will weave a smaller web.

In one photograph, taken on the top of Mont Ventoux, which is said to be one of the windiest places on Earth, a hiker in snow gear is on his heels and appears to be sitting in an invisible chair. The chair is the enormous force of wind that can support his entire weight.

Perhaps nothing is more affected by this natural phenomenon than the inhabitants of this region, people and plant life alike. A young girl holds her skirt down in the wind, whilst descending a set of stone stairs, which show the wear of years and countless foot treads. Cobb’s own son is shown with his arms spread wide to the mistral and leaning into it. Again, her young son has his eyes shielded outdoors from what one can only imagine is the dust. Cherries are bruised on one side where the wind has battered them for too long, thus ruining the crop. The edges of a flower’s petals are ragged and feathered from enduring the relentless wind.

All of these photographs make it a little easier for the viewer to envision what it would be like to live with such a presence nearly two hundred days out of every year.

These photographs are pure and transcendent, employing none of the current and banal trends in photography.

The word mistral means “masterly”. Cobb showcases her enormous talent in this book illustrating the masterful wind of Provence.

Ellen Rodgers, who worked at Lemuria Bookstore for twelve years, is a photographer born and raised in the Mississippi Delta. She exhibits work that focuses on the region, and Vice chose her photographs to represent Mississippi in the 50 States of Art project.

Signed copies of Mistral are available at our online store.

Timothy Isbell’s work shows the history and soul of ‘The Mississippi Gulf Coast’

By Guest Author

On November 20, 2018

In Nature, Photography, Southern Culture

By Scott Naugle. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (September 16)

Writer and photographer Timothy Isbell accomplished a nearly impossible feat. In The Mississippi Gulf Coast, he showcases images of overwhelming beauty on the Mississippi Gulf Coast within the context and landscape of a region still recovering from Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil spill.

In fact, Isbell’s monumental work is a response to Katrina and the resiliency of our coastal institutions and residents. As a Pulitzer-Prize winning photographer, he chronicled the destruction of the hurricane for The Sun Herald, the Gulfport/Biloxi-based daily newspaper. Isbell explains in his introduction to the The Mississippi Gulf Coast that the work has “special meaning, as it was a therapeutic endeavor after the destruction from Hurricane Katrina.”

With The Mississippi Gulf Coast, Isbell adds to an impressive body of photographic work. His Sentinels of Stone project produced three books memorializing the monuments and scenery of Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and Shiloh and Corinth. His work also includes a photographic study of the Vietnamese people on the Mississippi coast.

The book begins with an inclusive history of the Gulf Coast noting significant events and people. Starting with the Biloxi and Pascagoula Native American tribes, Isbell recalls Bienville and D’Iberville, British rule, the War of 1812, The Native Guard, and the establishment of statehood.

Colorful and influential personalities are remembered and noted for their contributions to the economic and cultural expansion of the coast. Edward Barq is recalled for opening the Biloxi Artesian Bottling Works in 1897. By 1900, Barq was producing what we now know as Barq’s Root Beer.

More recently, he notes the establishment of legalized gaming in 1990. Isbell comments, “Casino gaming is now one of the economic engines that provides a steady nest egg for the state treasury.”

Beginning from the western part of the coast and moving east, each town from Bay St. Louis through Pascagoula is celebrated with pages of breath-taking and mesmerizing color images. The full-page photographs, the artistry of the images and the obvious talent of the photographer are what make this both an exceptional and enduring memorial to the Mississippi Gulf Coast and its residents.

In the photographic section devoted to Pass Christian, Isbell captures a bald eagle launching into flight from a bare limb. The wings are just spreading, and the beak, a bold yellow, is beautifully contrasted against the light blue sky. In studying the photograph, one feels strong, proud, and invincible.

The built environment is also highlighted in stunning profile. Gulfport’s Fishbone Alley, newly created in 2016, is photographed during a quiet evening moment. Framed in artwork created by local artists, splashed and brush-stroked on the decades-old brick walls of the buildings framing the alley, the eye is drawn the length of the space into the far-off darkness. It is night, and light bulbs strung across the walkway form a streaking comet against the black sky. Benches beckon and suggest respite for conversation. The inlaid storm drain, straight and long, suggests a track into infinity. The moment as captured by Isbell, though devoid of people, is alive, breathing, indicating activity and vibrancy.

Referring to The Mississippi Gulf Coast, Isbell commented to me several weeks ago that he “put heart and soul into the book.” It shows, through the insightful, nuanced and intensely heartfelt work of this interpreter.

Scott Naugle is a resident of Pass Christian and the co-owner of Pass Christian Books/Cat Island Coffeehouse.

Timothy Isbell will be Lemuria on Saturday, November 24, at 11:00 a.m to sign copies of The Mississippi Gulf Coast.

Author Q & A with Rachel Cobb

By Guest Author

On October 28, 2018

In Nature, Photography, Travel

Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (October 28)

Award-winning New York-based photographer Rachel Cobb has spent years–decades, actually-chasing the wind.

And although such a pursuit would generally be considered fruitless for the rest of us, Cobb has defied conventional wisdom–she has captured the wind. What she has found, through the lens of her camera, is that this invisible force of nature is, at times, playful. Awe-inspiring. Destructive. Refreshing. Frightening. And utterly beautiful.

Cobb’s new book, Mistral: The Legendary Wind of Provence, is a photographic story of the relentless mistral, or strong wind, that evidence shows has likely blown through Provence, France, since before recorded time. Its impact on the area’s culture, architecture, agriculture, and social norms is revealed through stunning images of everyday life in the area.

What she discovered is that this phenomenon is clearly visible in the form of “a leaf caught in flight, a bride tangled in her veil, spider webs oriented to withstand the gusts,” to new a few revealing signs. Accompanying these visuals are excerpts from writings by Paul Auster, Lawrence Durrell, Jean Giono, Frédéric Mistral, Robert Louis Stevenson, and others, who attempt to make sense of the power of the mistral.

Rachel Cobb

Cobb has photographed current affairs, social issues, and features in the U.S. and abroad for more than two decades. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Sports Illustrated, Time, Rolling Stone, Natural History, Stern, and Paris Match, among others. She has been recognized with Picture of the Year awards for her work during the 9/11 attacks in New York City and in war-torn Sarajevo; and a Marty Forscher Grant for Humanistic Photography.

Born and raised in Dallas, Cobb has lived in New York City since she graduated from Denison University in Ohio.

Please define mistral, and tell me what your book is about. How long did it take you to capture all of these images, start to finish?

The mistral is a cold, dry wind that blows down the Rhône River Valley through Provence and empties into the Mediterranean. It can blow 200 days a year. It is fierce–relentless, even. It can turn a summer day into a chilly affair. My book is an attempt to capture the feeling of wind, to make my audience experience this invisible force of nature and to show what it means to live in a place where wind is so often present.

The first photograph I made for this series was in 1998 on medium format transparency film using a 1959 Rolleiflex twin lens camera. I’d first imagined this series as a square-format, moody, black-and-white story of people enduring the wind, maybe inside while the wind beat against their houses.

Obviously, that idea had to go. Who would have understood it? Besides, color is essential to seeing the mistral. It clears the sky and turn sit brilliant blue. And red–locals say a red sky at night indicates a mistral will follow. My first image was of a vibrant red sky at night, and if you look carefully, you can see the trees already beginning to stir. The last image was made in September 2017. But is any photographer ever really finished with a project like this? It’s now such a part of me to look for and respond to wind, I can’t help but take photos.

Tell me how you came to know about the mistral that you have written about and photographed in this book. What was it about this wind phenomenon that heightened your interest so intently?

I’d been going to this region of France since I was a teenager. Anybody who spends any amount of time in Provence is well acquainted with its most famous wind. You simply can’t escape it. And people talk about it endlessly. They predict, they complain, they repeat old adages about how long it will last, how strong it will be.

It occurred to me that the mistral is an essential part of Provençal life, and in fact, it defines many aspects of life there. The plants and trees bend to the wind. Farmers both try to control it by planting rows of trees tightly together to protect their crops, and they also make use of it, for example, when they tie plastic strips to their cherry trees. The plastic flaps in the wind and scares away birds. Houses and other buildings are built with the wind in mind, not the sun. Entrances are always on the southern, sheltered side. On the windward side, there are few or no windows. Even spiders build their webs to reduce the brunt of the wind. The mistral is the story of this place.

How hard does the mistral in Provence generally blow?

I used to carry an anemometer while I was working so that I could record exactly how hard the wind was blowing. The Beaufort Scale of Wind Force breaks down wind speed into a scale of 1 to 12, and it describes wind’s effects on sea and on land. During a strong mistral, gusts can reach 12 on the scale–that’s greater than 73 miles per hour–which is the start of hurricane strength. A more common sustained mistral might blow at 35-50 miles per hour.

Which photos did you find most challenging to capture?

I have a background in newspaper photography, which was wonderful training for working quickly, but this project really challenged me. I had to be there when the wind blew, and I also had to find ways of showing wind’s effect on things without repeating myself too much. It took longer than any story I’ve ever done. It took me 10 years to get the images of the wind-blown snow atop Mont Ventoux. Conditions have to be just right. There’s a snowfall on the mountain, then slightly warmer weather softens the snow, then wind blows and freezes the snow as it’s blowing.

I would follow the weather in Provence from New York, and when I would see there was a mistral, I would call people who worked on the mountain to see if the conditions were right, if there would be these strange snow formations. I walked up the mountain a couple of times before I got the photos I wanted.

The day I made the photos in the book, I recorded the wind at about 62 miles per hour on the mountain top. I would take off my gloves just long enough to make a frame or two, then I’d have to warm them and my cameras under my coats.

You state int he book that the people who live along the mistral’s path in Provence have a “complicated relationship” with the wind. In what ways?

Order and tradition are an important part of life in France. Farmers tidy their fields. People don’t leave the house disheveled. They’re more buttoned up than Americans. There are generally accepted rules of behavior that can be confining. Along comes the mistral. It’s a nuisance that slams car doors, loosens gutters, and upturns plants. Imagine you’re a waiter carrying a tray of glasses at an outdoor restaurant during a mistral. Things happen. Ten glasses go crashing to the ground, well… [French shrug]. The mistral happens. Chaos happens. It’s liberating.

Tell me about the writings in this book–how you chose them.

Many writers over the years have been moved to write about the mistral, and I felt their words would enhance my images. Of course, I wanted to include the work of the great French writers and poets like Frédéric Mistral, Alfonse Daudet, and Jean Giono, who were from the region. I found it surprising that so many foreigners have been charmed by and in awe of the mistral, from Paul Auster to George Sand to Robert Louis Stevenson.

What did you start out wanting to accomplish through this book, and did it change any as your work progressed?

A long project like this reveals itself slowly. I always thought the mistral could be a lens through which I could observe and describe Provence, but, in doing the work, I saw the mistral is essentially the spirit of the place.

Rachel Cobb will be at Lemuria on Monday, October 29, at 5:00 p.m. to sign and discuss Mistral: The Legendary Wind of Provence.

Author Q & A with Isabelle Armand

By Guest Author

On July 16, 2018

In Civil Rights, Photography

Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (July 15)

New York City photographer Isabelle Armand said she was “instantly inspired” to tell the stories of the wrongful convictions, incarcerations, and eventual exonerations of two rural Mississippi men when she first read about their cases more than five years ago.

In her new book, Levon and Kennedy: Mississippi Innocence Project (PowerHouse Books), Armand has visually documented the everyday lives of Levon Brooks and Kennedy Brewer over a five-year period after their release from the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman. The black and white images of the men and their families, captured in and around their homes in the small rural Mississippi town of Brooksville, includes quotations that convey their thoughts and feelings of regret and joy about the miscarriage of justice and the eventual outcome of their cases.

The men had been charged in separate murder cases committed 18 months apart in the early 1990s. Brooks was sentenced to life and was imprisoned 18 years; Brewer received a death sentence and served 15 years.

It was through the diligent work of The Innocence Project, along with DNA testing, that Brewere and Brooks were cleared of all charges and freed in 2008.

Armand’s book includes text by Tucker Carrington, director of the George C. Cochran Innocence Project at the University of Mississippi School of Law, who, with Washington Post reporter Radley Balko, co-authored the book The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist, also related to the cases of Brewer and Brooks.

Armand acknowledges the support of artist Olivier Renaud-Clement, the Shoen Foundation, PowerHouse Books, and Meridian Printing for the production of her book.

Her distinctive photography works can be found in private and museum collections, and have been exhibited in the United States. They have also been featured in national and international publications.

Tell me about your background, and how you became interested in photography.

I was born and raised in Paris. My mother was a Vogue editor and worked with amazing photographers such as Helmut Newton and Guy Bourdin. We had many photography books of the masters. I was always around photography and got the best possible education. I was especially drawn to the works of Walker Evans, Dorthea Lange, Brassai, Cartier-Bresson, Roy DeCarava, Edward Curtis, who documented people and places. They were storytellers of life. But at first, I followed in my mother’s steps and worked as a stylist there, and here.

I left France at 20 to come to New York, which I still love some 30 years later.

Do you have family or other connections to Mississippi?

A lifelong inspiration would be my only connection to Mississippi. I grew up fascinated with the U.S.; at first, it was through cinema. The West, New York, and the South seemed mythical places.

In Paris, I was around Blues musicians, and our idols were Robert Johnson, Little Walter, Muddy Waters, and the like. Mississippi captured my imagination, a fundamental American culture was born there, and I find the place incredibly rich and deeply textured.

How did you hear about the cases of Levon Brooks and Kennedy Brewer? When and why did you decide to become involved in them?

I came across an article about the cases’ forensics in 2012. It was a troubling account of a flawed and corrupt process, when reality goes beyond fiction. It triggered many questions; how, why, and where could this happen? I was instantly inspired to tell their story in photographs. I waited for several months, but the story stayed with me. Finally, I contacted Tucker Carrington, and suggested a photographic documentary around Levon’s and Kennedy’s experiences.

When did you begin photographing the images in this book, and how long did it take?

I began to photograph Levon and Kennedy and their families in June 2013. The last images and interviews were done in July 2017. I would go each year to spend time with them, take pictures, and collect interviews. With printing, editing both the images and the interviews, it took five years.

What were your goals (artistic and otherwise) for this project, as far as what you wanted to capture, how you envisioned the large photo collection would be organized, etc.?

The goal was to create a compelling visual essay to raise awareness about wrongful conviction. It’s a reality, which mostly remains abstract until we see it with our own eyes. I felt an intimate photo essay would bring the story of Levon and Kennedy to the forefront. We’d get to know them and their families like our own, and realize that the system can crush anyone.

I envisioned this essay pretty much like it is now. I started with retracing Levon’s and Kennedy’s childhoods, and visiting places which were meaningful to them, then and now. I’d document everyday life; family members, families’ gatherings, birthdays, July 4th, as well as their rural environment. With time, the project took a life of its own.

I love black and white film. It mutes unnecessary noise, and it sets off the essence of the subjects for me. Also, light on film is magic.

I edited as I went along, for each family, until editing for the book, when I had to look at the images in a new light. I eliminated a few photographs and created a new visual narrative. Damien Saatdjian, the graphic designer, gave it great breathing space and rhythm.

Both men and their families seem to have very forgiving spirits about their ordeals. Did that surprise you?

I knew a little about them prior to meeting them, so I wasn’t surprised. They were very angry when it happened. But spending 18 years in prison, or 10 on death row, they had to deal with it in a certain way, or it would destroy them. They had to make some peace with their situation, so they could endure and still be the men they wanted to be. Levon was thrown into a dangerous general population and chose to become a good influence. He saved lives and he was respected. Kennedy, isolated in his cell 24/7 while facing death, chose to educate himself, read, wrote, and prayed. Thinking of his ordeal every day was not an option, like he says in the book, “You’d go crazy.” Yet, he thought about it because he was trying to save himself, which he did by writing to the Innocence Project.

Besides where, how, and why this happened, my question was, “How does one and one’s family cope with wrongful conviction?” Both men and their families stick to a strong philosophy of life.

Levon and Kennedy have large families who supported them during their incarcerations, and you got to know them during the course of this project. What can you tell me about them–their thoughts on their loved ones’ false imprisonment, their attitudes about living in their rural Mississippi communities, their hopes for their own futures and that of their children and grandchildren? (It’s notable that, although many of them mentioned racial prejudice as an everyday event, most prefer to stay because of close family ties and the “peace and quiet” they enjoy.)

I interviewed everyone for the quotes you see in the book, and it depends on the individual. Most feel that the criminal justice system needs major changes. They lived through the most tragic consequences of this system, and their community still does in many ways. Levon and Kennedy’s wrongful incarceration is something they all want to put behind them, even though they have strong opinions about it.

These families have been there for generations, they are attached to their land loved ones, and most don’t want to leave. Some of the younger people are torn between the desire to go places offering more opportunities and diversity, and their love for their family and area. Every parent hopes for a better future for their children, but few think things will change in Mississippi. However, they all go about living their full lives. They ignore and rise above external pressures.

Sadly, Levon passed away this past January, after 10 years of freedom. Did he get to see this book?

Levon was the first person to receive the book right from the printer. He took it all around town, and he was proud of it.

The way the book is bound is wonderful–I love the way the book itself is the book jacket! As an artist, tell me about the decision to create this book like this, in that it makes such a strong impression before it’s even opened!

I don’t like jackets on books and I wanted the cover printed with a discreet lamination. I didn’t want any typo on the cover, either. I felt Levon and Kennedy were so powerful in this photograph that they drew you in. The book wouldn’t be what it is without the work of my lab Laumont on the book files, and the amazing printing of Meridian Printing. And again, Damien Saatdjian’s input was also invaluable to achieve the results we wanted.

Isabelle Armand will appear at the Mississippi Book Festival Aug. 18 as a participant in the “Seeing the Light in Mississippi” photography panel at 4:00 p.m. at the Galloway Fellowship Center.

Author Q & A with Jane Hearn (A Past That Won’t Rest)

By Guest Author

On June 25, 2018

In Civil Rights, Photography

Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (June 24)

Jane Hearn shares the remarkable legacy of photographer Jim Lucas, who began shooting scenes of 1960s civil rights activism while a college student at Millsaps, in A Past That Won’t Rest: Images of the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi.

The University Press of Mississippi publication features more than 100 never-before-seen photographs taken by Lucas from 1964 to 1968 that focus on four Mississippi historic events, with a fifth chapter putting recent national episodes of activist violence into historical perspective. These chapters are bolstered with narratives contributed by Dr. Howard Ball, Peter Edelman, Aram Goudsouzian, Robert E. Luckett Jr., Ellen B. Meacham, and Stanley Nelson, with a foreword by Charles L. Overby.

Tragically, Lucas was killed in a car accident in 1980, while still in his mid-30s. His striking black-and-white images have been edited and restored by Hearn, who was married to Lucas at the time.

Could you share some of your background that is relevant to your relationship with photographer Jim Lucas, to put A Past That Won’t Rest into context?

Jane Hearn

I grew up in the Fondren neighborhood where my great-grandfather, grandfather, and father had a service station until 1960 on the corner of North State Street and Fondren Place. That’s back when Duling was our elementary school and all the kids in that neighborhood went to Bailey and Murrah. Our family all grew up in St. Luke’s United Methodist Church, so I am still quite attached to that area and love the resurgence that is happening there.

When my husband, Terry Stone, retired from state government about 10 years ago, we moved to the Lowcountry of South Carolina and have made that our new home. I had earlier retired from my interior design and furniture business, but continued my interest in arts advocacy and worked on projects at Tougaloo College where I served as a trustee. I was most proud of the Tougaloo Art Colony which I founded and ran for many years.

Jim Lucas and I me in 1973 when he returned to Jackson from his tour in the Army and I had just returned to Jackson after having worked a few years in New York City after college at Delta State. At the time, Jim was intent on pursuing a career as a film cameraman, which he had done during his deployment in Southeast Asia. AS a freelance film photographer, he shot advertising, football films, and news and documentary assignments for NBC and UPI. Eventually, he was able to break into his real love, feature films, and was becoming known for his exceptional technical skills as a camera operator and director of photography. He was on location for the 20th Century Fox film Barbarosa, starring Willie Nelson, when he was killed in an automobile accident.

You were married to Jim Lucas at the time of his death in 1980. Why did you decide to put this collection of his photographs, along with pertinent narratives, together to create A Past That Won’t Rest: Images of the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi at this time?

This project began over five years ago with the original intent of finding a home for Jim’s extensive collection of negatives, prints, and ephemera before we moved out of state. I had kept the collection as he had stored it for over 30 years, but I felt the need to look at the images myself before I let them go. Many of the images are of high school and college life, sports, and friends, but peppered in were also newsworthy local events and images depicting historic civil rights events. Jim had always told me that there was history in his collection. I realized just how exceptional these images were and decided that it was fitting that Jim’s work should be shown to a wider audience.

I began the project with an exhibit of 35 images which previewed in June 2014 at the 50th Mississippi Freedom Summer Anniversary Conference at Tougaloo College. With support from the Mississippi Humanities Council, I was able to tour the exhibit through Mississippi for another 18 months. The book was an outgrowth of that exhibit.

Please tell me about the task that you and photojournalist Red Morgan shared in restoring these photos. Where had these photos been kept through the years, and what shape were they in? How long did this process take?

I would not have been able to do this project without Red Morgan. Red and I had only been acquaintances in high school. A mutual friend suggested I call him for help. A photojournalist and freelance photographer in Florida, Red reviewed some of Jim’s images and was excited by them. We worked together to scan, sort, edit, and produce digitalized images from over 5,000 vintage negatives. These negatives had been meticulously packaged, labeled, and documented by Jim. Our partnership in this project, along with Craig Gill and book designer Peter Halverson at the University Press of Misssissippi, has resulted in a book of 108 never-before- published photographs For all of us, this book has been a joy to produce.

Explain the process of putting this book together. How did you decide to organize it around the five narratives included? How did you choose the contributing writers? How did you narrow the selection of photographs?

As we continued to mine the collection for more photographs, we developed a website and doubled the touring exhibit. Suddenly, there were enough images for a book. The University Press of Mississippi saw the images and agreed.

The book is organized like the exhibit into four main events: the search for (civil rights workers) Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney (who were murdered in Mississippi) during Freedom Summer, 1964; the Meredith March Against Fear in 1966; the funeral of Wharlest Jackson in Natchez in 1967; and the U.S. Hearings on Poverty in Mississippi and Robert Kennedy’s subsequent trip to the Mississippi Delta in 1967.

In researching the history of these events, I was fortunate to find writers who had authored books on each. Once these scholars saw Jim’s amazing photos, they each agreed to lend their expertise with an introductory essay. Their variety of writing styles and intricate knowledge of the subject give the chapters context and lend a verbal narrative to Jim’s visual one.

The preface was written by Charles Overby, who in the mid-1960s was reporting from The Jackson Daily News while has in high school at Provine. Like Jim, Charles’ early passion and talent set him on a course for an outstanding career in journalism.

Please tell me about the touring exhibition and the website.

The early exhibit toured Mississippi in 13 venues across the state. The expanded exhibit showed last summer at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis and recently at the Brown v. Board of Education Historic Site in Topeka, Kansas.

In February, it will show at the University of South Carolina at Beaufort. The book will now be a companion catalog for the exhibit which is also called “A Past That Won’t Rest.”

An interesting thing that struck me about the book was the point that Aram Goudsouzian made about Jim capturing photos of not only the leaders, the famous people, and the drama, but also the ordinary people and events–the ones who would perform everyday tasks that would ultimately contribute to changing history, as has always been the case. Why do you think this was important to Jim?

Jim had a talent for capturing the story playing in front of his camera. He had an artistic sensibility, first to recognize the “moment,” to choose his subject, then to frame it with a discernment for good composition. His images rarely needed cropping. He shot black and white with multiple cameras (lenses), used wide angle photography and lighting with technical precision. His images reveal the emotion of the moment and the dignity and humanity of his subjects.

That day (in Yazoo County) in June 1966 on the Meredith March was hot and dusty. It was tough to walk that highway, yet through Jim’s lens we see the determination and cooperation that unified marchers of all different backgrounds who came to make sure that Meredith’s march did not fail.

Could you put the historical significance of these photos into context, especially for young people?

All of these photos and the accompanying essays depict iconic stories of Mississippians and those came to Mississippi to help in the long and arduous struggle to end violence and discrimination of black citizens.

Howard Ball’s essay on the murder of Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney tells not only this terrible tale of Klan brutality, but explains the origination of the Freedom Summer project. From 1964 through 1968, Jim’s lens allows us to see the palpable tension in the square in Philadelphia, the encouragement and pride of the marchers who rallied to assure that James Meredith’s march would meet its goal of registering people to vote, and the heartbreak and ultimate provocation of the black citizens in Natchez for the murder of a father of five whose truck was bombed for taking a job promotion that paid an additional 16 cents per hour. Peter Edelman and Ellen Meacham explain the fight over funding for the War on Poverty, a fight that continues today, and Robert Luckett draws a parallel to the grassroots organization against institutionalized violence of the 60s and that of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Jim Lucas

It’s rare that someone discovers his or her passion and future career at such a young age, but Jim was freelancing for The Jackson Daily News at age 14! Tell me about Jim–his talent, his drive, his personality.

Jim was a very humble person, almost shy, but never shy behind the camera or talking subjects photographic. The camera gave him entrance to all kinds of happenings and he had a curiosity and sensitivity for people and for animals. He was studied, measured, and loved the technical. Friends thought him the true camera nerd–in a good way! He had resolve from an early age to excel and make a mark. His work can now be included among other courageous and dedicated photojournalists of that era.

Signed copies of A Past That Won’t Rest: Images of the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi are available from Lemuria.

Jane Hearn will appear at the Mississippi Book Festival Aug. 18 as a participant in the Mississippi Civil Rights panel panel at 12:00 p.m. at the C-SPAN room in Old Supreme Court Room at the State Capitol.

Poet and photographer team to create a witness to ‘Mississippi’

By Guest Author

On March 6, 2018

In Photography, Poetry

By Jordan Nettles. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (February 25)

In Mississippi, 47 poems by Ann Fisher-Wirth and 47 color photographs by Maude Schuyler Clay delve into the history, culture, and ecology of the state of Mississippi. The book is a gorgeous large-format hardback, with equally stunning words and images inside.

mississippi

Both Fisher-Wirth and Clay have spent much of their lives in Mississippi. Clay is a seventh-generation Mississippian and Fisher-Worth has lived in the state for 30 years. Fisher-Worth, born in Washington D.C., has taught at the University of Mississippi since first moving to Mississippi in 1988. She has written scholarly works and books of poems, including Dream Cabinet, Carta Marina, Five Terraces, and Blue Window. Clay, born in Greenwood, Mississippi, has had photos published in Esquire, Fortune, and Vanity Fair, and included in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art. She is also the photographer of Delta Land and Delta Dogs, both published by University Press of Mississippi. During their time in Mississippi, Fisher-Wirth and Clay have gathered visual and linguistic experiences that are revealed in their poems and photographs.

Each poem in Mississippi is matched with a photo, both pieces working together to tell a story of Mississippi. Fisher-Wirth has said that most of the poems in the book were written to accompany a photograph previously taken by Clay. Fisher-Wirth then penned poems “spoken in voices of fictive characters” that suggested themselves to her as she pondered the photos. Although fictitious, the voices sometimes cross with important events of Mississippi and American history, such as the Civil Rights Movement. There are poems dealing with the murder of Emmett Till and other tragedies that occurred during the same time period. Other poems in the books are inspired by students, neighbors, and other Mississippians that Fisher-Wirth has known personally. The voices represented are as varied as Mississippi itself, racially and socioeconomically.

Fisher-Wirth and Clay explore several facets of Mississippi, including how race and the environment interact. The book stresses that, “Mississippi suffers from severe environmental degradation that cannot be separated from its history of poverty and racial oppression.” Despite this difficult history and inherent complexity, the natural beauty of Mississippi can’t be denied. Also undeniable is the beauty of Mississippi’s identity–an identity that’s made up of many unique voices that are honored and explored in this book. True reflections of the beauty and complexity in Mississippi, the poems and photos will likely feel familiar to native Mississippians and will provide a glimpse into the realities of Mississippi to non-natives.

Although voice is an important part of Mississippi, actual Mississippians are only the subject of one photograph. Instead, most of the photos capture awe-inspiring sights in nature and every-day objects that Mississippians will recognize. Included are images of swamps, open fields, trees, falling-apart buildings, dogs, and the interiors of quintessentially Southern homes. A personal favorite photo depicts a type of hide away built into the side of a hill in the woods. Haunting and captivating, the photos are authentic representations of what it feels like to be part of Mississippi.

The epigraph for the book is taken from Theodore Roethke’s “North American Sequence”: “The imperishable quiet at the heart of form.” The quietness in Clay’s photos influenced Fisher-Wirth as she listened for voices to use in her poems. Likewise, Mississippi invites the reader to listen for those voices and to reflect on the stories at the heart of the poems and photographs.

Mississippi is a stunning testament to the spirit of Mississippi.

Jordan Nettles is a graduate of The University of Southern Mississippi and the Columbia Publishing Course in New York. She is marketing assistant at University Press of Mississippi in Jackson.

Author Q & A with Ann Fisher-Wirth

By Guest Author

On February 8, 2018

In Gift Books, Photography, Poetry

Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (February 4)

As an Army brat who swore in her teen years that she’d never live in Mississippi, poet and University of Mississippi professor Ann Fisher-Wirth has, after nearly 30 years as an Oxford resident, decided that Mississippi (along with parts of California) now feels like home.

Not only has she felt moved to compose poetry honoring Mississippi’s culture, history, and people, but she is devoted to preserving its land, which she believes has suffered “severe environmental degradation that cannot be separated from its history of poverty and racial oppression.”

Her newest book, titled Mississippi, is a collaboration with acclaimed photographer and Delta native Maude Schuyler Clay, offering a different perspective on her current home state–one that is both visual and literary. The volumes includes 47 sets of Clay’s striking–and sometimes haunting–photos, each paired with one of Fisher-Wirth’s reflective poems.

Photographs and letterpress poems from this project are on exhibit throughout Mississippi, and a performance piece involving six actors has been created from two dozen of the poems.

Fisher-Wirth’s other poetry books include Dream Cabinet, Carta Marina, Five Terraces, and Blue Window. She has alos published an academic book on William Carlos Williams and four poetry chapbooks. With Laura-Gray Street, she co-edited the groundbreaking Ecopoetry Anthology.

She has been the recipient of several residencies, is a Fellow of the Black Earth Institute, and received a senior Fulbright to Switzerland and a Fulbright Distinguished Chair award to Sweden. She is also a past president of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment. Fisher-Wirth teaches American literature and poetry workshops and directs the Environmental Studies program at Ole Miss. She has recently completed a sixth poetry book manuscript, Because Here We Are.

There was a time when you swore you’d never live here. Tell me about your Mississippi experience, and why you’ve stayed.

I was an Army brat; when I was 10, my father retired and my family moved to Berkeley, California, where I spent my teenage years. Living in Berkeley in the 1960s, I paid careful attention to the civil rights movement; that’s why I swore I’d never live in Mississippi. I lived in southern California, Belgium, and Virginia.

Ann Fisher-Wirth

But in the late 1980s, we cam here (to Ole Miss), lured by the terrific English department, the literary community centered in Square Books, and the fact that Mississippi seemed to be a very complicated, culturally fascinating, beautiful and troubled place. We came in a spirit of adventure, and a feeling that we could do good work here. We’ve stayed because we want to. The English department has just gotten better and better–it’s a friendly and increasingly heterogeneous department. I love working with our MFA poets as well as with the undergraduates who study American literature and creative nonfiction with me. I also love directing and teaching for the minor in Environmental Studies, and ahve had some fantastic, dynamic students over the years.

Our children are all grown–our three daughters live elsewhere, but our two sons are here, as are two of our grandchildren–a major attraction. I’m attached to our house, old and drafty as it is. And Oxford is just plain an incredible place to be a writer.

How did you and Maude come up with the idea to create a book together? Were the poems written to go with the photographs, or were the photographs taken to go with the poems?

Maude Schuyler Clay

Maude and I have known each other socially for decades and have known each other’s work. At one point or the other of us casually remarked, “We should do something sometime.” She thinks I was the one; I think she was the one.

A few years ago she started sending me photographs she had taken but never published. I had recently published Dream Cabinet and The Ecopoetry Anthology and was looking for a new project. I was moved by her photo of a tree in water–this has turned out to be the cover image for the book–and I wrote the poem based on the yoga pose Vrksasana that begins “You stand in Tree…” A little later, she sent me a hauntingly beautiful image of a boat in greenish water. I knew I wanted to write a poem based on this photo, but had no idea what it could say until Made mentioned that the boat had belonged to her close friend who had just died. Immediately, the poem “Between two worlds / the soul floats…” came to me, and eventually that became the opening poem of the book. Others followed as Maude continued to send me photographs over the next couple of years.

Nearly all the poems were written to go with photographs; in only on or two cases, we found photos to go with poems I had already written. But as you know, the poems don’t just describe the photographs, and, with one exception, the photographs don’t have people in them.

Instead, the poems are spoken in voices of fictive characters that the photographs somehow suggested to me. Creating this book was, for me, very much an act of channeling voices, scraps of lives that I have encountered since living in Mississippi, sometimes combined with scraps of memory from my own life–exploring the incredible richness of this region’s spoken language.

What is the message of the blending of this poetry with the sometimes bare, sometimes harsh images of the state’s landscape, that you want to leave with your readers?

Poems are more about experiences than messages, so I don’t really have a message per se. I wanted the poems to reflect the variety of voices, and hence the variety of people, in Mississippi: old, young; wise, foolish; poor, middle-class, wealthy; loving, hateful; male, female; lettered, unlettered; black, white, Native American. Some of the poems are harsh and bleak, and speak to the realities of racism, poverty, violence, and environmental damage that are part of Mississippi. Others are lush and beautiful, as befits the beauty and gentler aspects of the people and places.

How did you develop an interest in writing poetry–and then realize that you were so good at it?

I come from a family of English teachers and readers, and I’ve always wanted to write poetry. I wrote a little bit in high school, then stopped, then wrote a little bit more while writing my dissertation, then stopped. Until I got tenure at the University of Mississippi, my writing was academic–a book on William Carlos Williams, a numbers of essays on Williams, Willa Cather, Anita Brookner, Robert Haas, and others.

Then just for fun I audited a poetry workshop that my friend Aleda Shirley was teaching, and after the first day, I said to myself, “This is it. I’m writing poems from now on, and never looking back.” Some time later, I attended a week-long workshop in California called The Art of the Wild, and wrote a poem called, “What Is There to Do in Mississippi?” It became my first published poem, in the magazine The Wilderness Society, and it even paid–so I took my whole family out to dinner to celebrate at City Grocery (in Oxford). After that, it took a while to get my first book, Blue Window, published, and the rest has followed. It’s always a a lot of work, always an adventure.

Thank you for saying I am “so good at it.” I sure love it. I’ve always loved writing, but my confidence about it is never a steady-state thing.

Your poetry style here is at once stark and powerful–there are no titles, no punctuation, no apparent patter of wordplay–and grammatical rules are cast aside. Tell me how this design contributes to the interpretation of the poetry.

I wanted to get rid of the conventional accouterments of poetry and just let the voices be heard. I also wanted the eye to be alive on the page–to treat the page as a field of composition and make use of negative space in order to capture the way we actually speak, which is never a steady march forward, and never completely grammatically. One of the strongest elements of Southern literature is its orality, and I wanted to honor the living voices in every way.

There are several recurring themes in your poetry in this book: racism, sexual desire, death, family, tragedy, memories, and nature’s beauty and fury. Why these topics?

Is there anything else? I’m partly kidding. But a writer doesn’t exactly get to choose his or her themes; these are topics that have greatly concerned me my whole life. They’re central to human experience, no matter where or when. By the way, I love the phrase “nature’s beauty and fury.” That “fury” is so important.

Do you have plans for future writing projects?

Well, I have a lot of uncollected poems and a desire to create another book, but as yet it has no shape. I’m writing new poems all the time, some of which are worth keeping. For the pas two fall semesters, I have team-taught with my colleague Patrick Alexander in the Prison to College Pipeline program for pre-release prisoners at Parchman. This has been an intensely rich experience for me and I’ve been writing about that. And there are a couple of editing projects I’ll be working on–but it’s too early to talk about them.

Ann Fisher-Wirth and Maude Schuyler Clay will be at Lemuria on Friday, February 9, at 5:00 to sign and discuss their new book, Missisippi.

Category: Photography (Page 1 of 2)

Author Q & A with Michael Ford

Author Q & A with James T. Campbell and Elaine Owens

Haunting Mississippi images in Florence Mars’ ‘Mississippi Witness’

Rachel Cobb’s ‘Mistral’ depicts photographer’s unyielding chase to catch the uncatchable

Timothy Isbell’s work shows the history and soul of ‘The Mississippi Gulf Coast’

Author Q & A with Rachel Cobb

Author Q & A with Isabelle Armand

Author Q & A with Jane Hearn (A Past That Won’t Rest)

Poet and photographer team to create a witness to ‘Mississippi’

Author Q & A with Ann Fisher-Wirth

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