Joining Darnell Arnoult at 4 p.m. in the UC Theater for the Spring Literary Festival will be Appalachian poet, teacher, and fiber artist Jane Hicks and she will be reading from her new book of poems titled Driving with the Dead.
Poet, teacher, and quilter Jane Hicks
Photo from Google Images
A native of upper East Tennessee, Hicks is an award-winning poet and quilter. Her poetry appears in both journals and numerous anthologies, including Southern Poetry Anthology: Contemporary Appalachia, Literary Lunch, Crossing Troublesome: 25 Years of the Appalachian Writers Workshop, Coal: an Anthology, We All Live Downstream: Writings about Mountaintop Removal, Iron Mountain Review, Red Crow Review, Appalachian Journal, and Southern Poetry Anthology: Tennessee.
Both of Hicks’ books, Blood and Bone Remember and Driving with the Dead, received the James Still Award for Poetry from the Appalachian Writers Association, one of the highest honors for writing in the region. Hicks’ other medium includes the art of quilting, and her “literary quilts” illustrate the works of playwright Jo Carson and novelists Sharyn McCrumb and Silas House; one even became the cover of her own book. The art quilts have toured with these respective authors and were the subject of a feature in Blue Ridge Country Magazine in an issue devoted to arts in the region.
In an interview with attending author Denton Loving, Hicks was asked why she thinks poetry can be used as a vehicle for learning about history.
Driving with the Dead by Jane Hicks
Photo from Google Images
“I’m a teacher at heart. I want to inform and remind students that history didn’t happen in a vacuum and is not confined to events in history books. The people who fought in Vietnam or protested against it (or other conflicts and wars) are right here, and students can talk to history,” Hicks replied.
“I recently read at a nearby university, and some of my former students were present. As I read that poem, I could see them nodding and prodding each other. We studied the draft lottery in our class, and they remembered. They also had a reaction to a poem from my other book that talked about the Cold War. Someone asked me a question about the draft lottery after the reading. As the crowd left the auditorium, I saw one of my students talking to this person. I’m confident she set that person in the right direction to learn more.”
