Book review—Chicken Train: Poems from the Arkansas Delta

Chicken Train: Poems from the Arkansas Delta

By Terry Minchow-Proffitt

Middle Island Press

2016

I suppose I should explain what the Arkansas Delta is. Although I’d rather not. That is, I’d rather not have to. I wish you already knew about the delta, the place where my father lived and is buried now, the place where I was born.

Nearly all the eastern border of Arkansas—until you get to that jag in the northeast corner, that single dip-down toe of Missouri—runs along the Mississippi River. And all along the west side of the river lies the Arkansas Delta. 

Flatlands, mostly. 

Some call this landform an alluvial plain. Some call an alluvial plain a flood plain. Some call this particular plain the most southern place in America. 

Even though my father worked as a grocery-store manager, transferred from town to town, and we ended up in El Dorado at the bottom of the state, the delta still felt like home to me. A lost home.

Terry Minchow-Proffitt captures this sense of loss throughout his collection Chicken Train. He reveals loss in the poem “Helena Bound”:

that plywood sheet

nailed across the storefront window

on Cherry Street is not the saddest thing

I ever saw, but for the 1000th time

I forget what is.

He names loss directly in the titular poem “Chicken Train”:

Helena, I cross your bridge

where you wait, but not a soul

welcomes my return

to feel again the sting of your loss.

There’s your unmistakable pang of displacement from a rural past. He invokes the town of Helena, lightly personified, as if to reawaken her. She allusively resonates on the plain of another poem, Edgar Allen Poe’s “To Helen.”

Minchow-Proffitt doesn’t need to tell me how his Helena is akin to Poe’s “regions which are Holy-Land.” I feel it.

I feel it because the poet treats this landscape with rare precision, in descriptions not gratuitous, nor used as overture, but central: 

The black Arkansas delta fans out flat

 --

Not even the tangled sway

and squander of your kudzu

cascade could stop the erosion

of Crowley’s Ridge . . .

--

Slow on these knees through Johnson grass

--

. . . the sun-baked 

parking lot of a Walmart

--

. . . we drowse across summer’s thick middle

on a narrow belt of two-lane blacktop

Minchow-Proffitt also zooms in close to capture images specific, familiar, and haunting to an Arkansan like myself:

• pig’s feet jars

• sweet potato pie

• white rabbits in hutches

• Huddle House

• two cowboy boots stick out

• a median of green

• secret hot chow-chow

These images are realized in often short lines with delicate enjambments. The white space conveys the openness of the plains, while the line breaks reflect the ambiguity of navigating multiple realities, home and away, past and present. Across these brief lines Minchow-Proffitt suspends long sentences, accruing energy, hypnotically intoning, giving the sense that no matter how much you say, the past keeps on pulling up, more and more material, maybe endless.

Some of the most exciting small moments in the poems come when I hear dialect:

• grab aholt

• Lord knows what with whom

• all this carrying on

• Naw, I will, too

• so many it busted us up

• commences to tell

My only wish here would be for more. More voices, more words from this world. Especially when a southern speaker is paraphrased, there is room to even more completely realize dialect in the poetry.

I’m grateful Minchow-Proffitt doesn’t stop short of telling why the delta got emptied by rural flight. In “To a Green Patch of Yard” we learn:

Before Big Ag beat

the Delta like a rug

and flung field hands

like motes to light

elsewhere for a spell

before being beaten 

into flight again,

you weathered

the beginning of the end

This is fearless writing, revealing—for those who have wondered, especially in 2016 and 2020—one factor in how so many rural Americans got desperate enough to look for help in the wrong places, from politicians who tell them lies they need to hear.

The very title of the collection is fearless. It moves into territory where a writer might not be taken seriously. The poet even goes so far as to identify himself fully with a chicken:

I know exactly where I am:

now walking deserted rails,

now on Cherry again, cradled

where dreams bud and beam

me back buck-buck-buckAWKing—

prodigal chicken

in your arms tonight.

Speaking as someone whose mother once worked the night shift in an Arkansas chicken plant, and who learned to fret about class ramifications of the in-town chickens next door, embracing chickens takes courage, even when they’ve become trendy in other parts of the United States. Minchow-Proffitt, who writes about raising chickens, too, gets it just right. The chicken images trouble yet satisfy, disturbing but dignified.

Something Minchow-Proffitt does masterfully is explore the way religion shapes the inner life. Probably not a surprise, given he’s a retired pastor. But his work does not aim to provide certainty. When he details a church scene, in “Proceedings of the 15th Annual Session of the Rock Solid Association,” he sticks to what is concrete and lets the reader draw conclusions about the events and characters. He tells us

Deacon Holt ain’t been right in a month of Sundays,

not been a shining 

light to sinners, not even a fit

father to his five children.

But there is distance between the poet and the speaker. We know this is how the church community assesses Deacon Holt, not necessarily how we would judge him. Maybe we wouldn’t judge him at all.

. . .

In an email exchange about what Arkansas and Glasgow as written places might have in common, writer-teacher-publisher Alan McMunnigall of thi wurd quoted author Alasdair Gray to me: 

“Glasgow is a magnificent city,” said McAlpin. “Why do we hardly ever notice that?”

“Because nobody imagines living here . . . think of Florence, Paris, London, New York. Nobody visiting them for the first time is a stranger because he’s already visited them in paintings, novels, history books and films. But if a city hasn’t been used by an artist not even the inhabitants live there imaginatively.”

―In Lanark

Really it was that last sentence Alan quoted. “If a city hasn’t been used by an artist not even the inhabitants live there imaginatively.” 

Writing about Arkansas as Minchow-Proffitt does, as an artist, is about writing Arkansas into existence. 

This writing act need not be more than curiosity: What does Arkansas look like on the page? How does it sound? Not the way you’re told it should be, but the way you know it, the way you feel it, dream it, the way you know it could be. 

I said mere curiosity would do. But chances are, the impulse comes from the layer of longing. Deeper.

. . .

You can purchase Chicken Train here, and visit the poet’s website here.

A frolic in Arkansas

In the book Tall Tales of Arkansaw (1938), James R. Masterson¹ collected native lore from the state’s early days. Here I’m reproducing a tale related by Col. Charles Fenton Mercer Noland, supposedly narrated to him by his friend Col. Pete Whetstone. The story originally appeared in the periodical Spirit of the Times² in 1839.

According to Masterson, “here, as elsewhere, the line between fiction and fact is not easily distinguished” (p. 40). Masterson says that Whetstone was supposedly a real person, and a quick check on Ancestry.com does show records for a Peter Whetstone who married in Arkansas in 1816. 

I’m less interested in the question of Whetstone’s existence, and more amazed by the vernacular attributed to him.

I’m not amazed, and not surprised, that the story includes the word koon, a racist slur I heard growing up in Arkansas. It’s not clear whether it has that meaning here, or if it means only “a rustic; fool,” but I’m assuming the racist usage. I censored it in the story itself.

Masterson introduces the story this way: “Pete was invited to a ‘frolic’ south of the Rock. [Little Rock.] Having worn out his clothes, he bought a pair of red broadcloth breeches, which he found to be much too large. . . . He entered the house with misgivings, and found an inconspicuous place in a corner.” Here is Peter Whetstone’s telling:

Presently some gentleman asked a lady to sing; so up she gits, and he leads her to something in the corner, that looked like the nicest kind of a chest. Well, she opened the lid, and it was right chuck full of horse-teeth; she just run her hand across them, and I never heard such a noise in all my life. I whispered to the next fellow to me and asked what sort of a varmint that was? “Why, Kurnel,” says he, “that is a pe-anny.” Well, the young lady commenced, and I never heard such singing. I forgot my britches, and started to walk close to the pe-anny, when I heard them tittering. . . . So I feels my dander rising, and began to get mad; I walked right up, bold as a sheep. There was a sort of a dandy looking genius standing by the pe-anny—Says he “Now do, Miss favor us with that delightful little ditty—my favorite—you know it.” Then she commenced,

“When the Belly-aker is hearn over the sea,

I’ll dance the Ronny-aker by moonlight with thee.”

That is all I recollect. When she got through, up steps Maj. Green, and introduces me to her. Says she, (and I tell you she looked pretty,) “Col. Whetstone, what is your favorite?” Says I, “Suit yourself, and you suit me.” And that made her laugh. Well, right at that, up steps a fellow that looked as if het had been sent for and couldn’t go. Says he, “Miss, will you give me ‘the last link is broken?’”—“Why,” says she, “indeed, sir, I have the most wretched cold in the world.” —“Why, Miss,” says I, “you wouldn’t call yours a bad a cold if you had seen Jim Cole arter he lay out in the swamp and catched cold.” “Why,” says she, (and lord, but she looked killing,) “how bad was his cold?” “Why, Miss,” says I, “he didn’t quit spitting ice till the middle of August.” That made her laugh. “Well,” says she, “Kurnel Whetstone, that cures my cold.” So she commenced—

“The last link is broken that binds you to me,

The words you have spoken is sorry to I.”³

Well, arter the lady was over, they all went in to supper; lots of good things. I sat next to a young lady, and I heard them saying, “Miss, with your permission, I’ll take a piece of the turkey,” and so on. I sees a plate of nice little pickles.— “Miss, with your permission, I’ll take a pickle,” and she said I might do so. I reached over and dipped up one on my fork--it was small, and I put the whole of it in my mouth. Oh, lordy! but it burnt;—well, the more I chawed the worse it was. Thinks I, if I swallow, I am a burnt k--n. Well, it got too hot for human nater to stand; so says I, “Miss, with your permission, I’ll lay this pickle back,” and I spit it out. Oh, lordy! What laughing. “Excuse me, ladies, if I have done wrong,” says I, “but that pickle is too hot for the Devil’s fork.” Everybody seemed to take the thing in good part, but one chap; says he, “I never seed such rude behavior in all my life.” At that I turns round to him: says I, “Look here, Mister, if you don’t like the smell of fresh bread, you had better quit the bakery.” Well, I tell you, that shot up his fly-trap quicker. After supper the party broke up.”⁴ 

Notes

1. Information on James Raymond Masterson at first appeared nonexistent, but I had assumed he was from Arkansas. As it turns out, he was born in Michigan and educated at Harvard. After working as a professor he began work in Washington, D.C., as a historian. What prompted him to write about Arkansas? Did he ever even set foot there? See his obituary here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1981/04/06/james-raymond-masterson-edited-historical-bibliography/98eac0ee-1a0e-414a-bb0b-71a3bdcc5b01/. His book is James R. Masterson, Tall Tales of Arkansaw (Boston: Chapman and Grimes, 1943).

2. Spirit of the Times 9:20 (March 16, 1839). In Masterson. 

3. This song, “The Last Link Is Broken,” can be viewed here: https://digitalcommons.conncoll.edu/shower/34/. I haven’t yet identified the first song in the story.

4. Masterson, 46–47. Author’s punctuation and spelling retained. Masterson likely transcribed these faithfully from the original periodical.

Surrealist manifesto

This is my first translated section of André Breton’s original surrealist manifesto. I was curious to read it carefully and consider how Breton describes life’s dreamlike nature. In reviewing the official translation, I found it was well crafted and precisely recast the French into idiomatic English. But I wanted to retain more of what I felt to be the mood, rhythm, and, well, strangeness of Breton’s words. I also chose to use second person where Breton used third-person masculine, because to me gendered language in French, partially rooted in grammar, can operate more independently of social identities than in English.

Manifeste du surréalisme

Manifesto of surrealism

André Breton, 1924

Belief in life extends so far— life becomes all the more precarious— a sense of “real” life accords— the belief disappears from view. You, the definitive dreamer, daily more discontent with your lot, can hardly handle the objects you’ve been compelled to make use of, objects obtained in nonchalance, or through your effort— your effort almost always— because you consented to work— at least you weren’t loath to try your luck (what you call your luck!). Currently what you possess is a state of great modesty: You know what lovers you’ve had, what ridiculous adventures you got mixed up in; your richness or poverty is nothing to you— you remain in that sense a newborn babe and, as for your moral conscience, let’s admit you find that easy to ignore. If you retain any lucidity, you cannot help returning to your childhood, which, though it must have been massacred by your guardians, still seems full of enchantments. There— childhood— the absence of the rigor you’ve since learned allows another perspective, of several lives lived at once; you take root in this illusion; you no longer want to know anything but absorption— extreme— in all things. Every morning this child sets out without worry. Everything is close— the worst material conditions could be excellent. The woods are white or black— you will never sleep.

But it is true you could not possibly go so far— it’s not just a matter of distance. The threats accumulate— you concede— you abandon a part of the ground you were meant to conquer. Your imagination, which knew no bounds— you no longer permit it to open except to serve the practical— which is arbitrary; but imagination cannot sustain this shrunken role and, around your twentieth year, it abandons you to your destiny without light— without any light at all.

If you were to try later, here and there, to regain yourself— having bit by bit sensed you lack any reason to live— incapable as you’ve become to rise to an exceptional situation such as love— you would hardly achieve this recovery. You belong from now on, body and soul, to an imperious practical necessity, which won't weaken just because you don’t notice it. All your gestures will lack scale, all your ideas, scope.

You will only consider— regarding what happens to you and can happen to you— what connects an event to a crowd of similar events, events you didn’t even experience, missing events.

I mean this: you will judge things in relation to one of these events in particular— whichever one reassures you most, whose consequences distress you least. You will not see this, under any pretext, as your salvation. Dear Imagination, what I love the most in you is that you do not forgive.

Freedom— this one word alone is all that still excites me. Freedom I find suitable for maintaining, indefinitely, the old human fanaticism. Freedom fulfills, without a doubt, my only true aim. Despite the many disgraces we inherit, we must realize freedom, the greatest freedom of mind, is also bequeathed us. It is up to us to not misuse it gravely. To reduce imagination to slavery, even when doing so brings what we crudely call happiness, is to nullify everything one finds, in the depths of self, of supreme justice. Only imagination informs me what can be, and it’s enough to lift a little the terrible prohibition; enough, too, for me to abandon myself to imagination without fear that I am wrong (as if one could be more wrong than one already is).

Notes on vernacular language

Vernacular 

Has momentum

Has energy

Vernacular throws off the rational

Standard language, leveled dialect, is safer

Vernacular can be threatening

Threatening to the social order

So we “need” (are required) to think of the vernacular speaker as stupid, inferior

Standard language is not merely neutral, in the positive sense, a medium to build understanding

When it’s enforced, standard

becomes neutering and neutralizing

I made these notes after reading a great story written in a UK vernacular. It struck me that the story could be retold in a southern U.S. dialect and it would remain very similar. But if it were recast in standard UK or U.S. English, it would lose all its drive and complexity. It would be limp.

In a 2014 interview with Karl Ove Knausgaard, critic James Wood asked, after talking about Knausgaard writing about shitting in the woods as a kid, “Then there is small stuff, like your willingness to use exclamations like ‘yuck,’ ‘phew,’ ‘oh oh oh,’ ‘ha ha ha’—the kind of exclamation that one sees in children’s fiction or genre fiction but which is snobbishly disdained in contemporary high fiction, so to speak. Were you aware at the time that these were risks, that they were acts of daring?”

Wood’s assertion of the existence of high language in high fiction, something it seems to me normally goes unmentioned, caught me. Maybe all my years of working with juvenile books and genre fiction have shaped my expectations. But I don’t understand why any storytelling, high, middle, or low, would look to omit how people talk and think. How strange.

I encountered a similar notion in Jay Jennings’s introduction to Escape Velocity: A Charles Portis Miscellany. “Behold the lowly but upright exclamation point!” writes Jennings. “Cormac McCarthy recently declared that it has no place in literature (ditto the semicolon), but Portis’s expertise argues for its retention.” First of all, the proposition that exclamation points don’t belong in literature—high literature, no doubt—is completely ridiculous. Just because McCarthy doesn’t wnt to use them gives him no right to stigmatize them in general. Second, Jennings is so right to discuss Portis’s genius with exclamation points. My favorite passage in his 1979 roadtrip novel Dog of the South just wouldn’t be the same without them:

The guidebook advised against driving at night in Mexico but I figured that stuff was written for fools. I was leaning forward again and going at a headlong pace like an ant running home with something. The guidebook was right. It was a nightmare. Trucks with no tailights! Cows and donkeys and bicyclists in the middle of the road! A stalled bus on the crest of a hill! A pile of rocks coming up fast! An overturned truck and ten thousand oranges rolling down the road! I was trying to deal with all this and watch for Sky at the same time and I was furious at Dr. Symes for sleeping through it. I no longer cared whether he fell out or not.

An incredibly paced list, gaining momentum with a series of exclamations! I love it. But setting aside the brilliance of that passage, don’t people exclaim? Don’t they show excitement, and feel it, and think it? They do. The exclamation point belongs in fiction. Everything that belongs to humanity belongs in. Otherwise, what are writers trying to accomplish?