For working comedians, mean-spirited hecklers are part of the job. But what happens when someone gets angry enough to throw a beer? And, West Virginia poet laureate Marc Harshman had his own experience with an intimidating gig. We also hear some advice for people caring for aging relatives. You’ll hear these stories and more this week, Inside Appalachia.
For working comedians, mean-spirited hecklers are part of the job. But what happens when someone gets angry enough to throw a beer?
And, West Virginia poet laureate Marc Harshman had his own experience with an intimidating gig.
We also hear some advice for people caring for aging relatives.
You’ll hear these stories and more this week, Inside Appalachia.
In This Episode:
Kentucky Comedian Ducks A Heckler And Catches Fame
West Virginia Poet Laureate Looks Back At 10 Years
Miss West Virginia Champions Appalachian Agriculture
Kentucky Comedian Ducks A Heckler And Catches Fame
Catching a break in comedy can take years, decades — sometimes never. Usually, stand up comedians slowly work their way up from open mics and local bars — to the grind of touring on the club circuit.
But getting a spot on a late night talk show? That could be a career launcher — leading to a better spot on club shows, national tours and — every once in a while — real stardom.
Kentucky comedian Ariel Elias recently appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! — but not in the way she expected. She went viral after a video emerged of a heckler in New Jersey chucking a beer at her.
It missed Elias’ head by inches. What happened next ensured her place in standup history. Elias picked up the can — and chugged the rest of the beer.
WFPL’s Stephanie Wolf recently spoke with her.
More Questions About Elder Care Answered
Caring for aging parents is hard — especially here in Appalachia. There’s not always support for caregivers who provide the day-to-day needs of loved ones. Inside Appalachia Executive Producer Eric Douglas is exploring issues around elder care.
He recently spoke with Teresa Morris of the West Virginia chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association.
West Virginia Poet Laureate Looks Back At 10 Years
Marc Harshman is West Virginia’s poet laureate. Harshman has published more than 15 books over his career, many of them for children. His 2017 book “Believe What You Can” won Appalachian Book of the Year. Producer Bill Lynch recently spoke with Harshman about his long tenure, his current collection, “Dark Hills of Home,” and what it was like when he found out he was chosen to follow Irene McKinney as West Virginia poet laureate.
Miss West Virginia Champions Appalachian Agriculture
Miss West Virginia Elizabeth Lynch finished as third-runner up in the Miss America competition. Lynch used the moment to promote Appalachian agriculture. WVPB’s Shepherd Snyder spoke to Lynch about her advocacy.
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Our theme music is by Matt Jackfert. Other music this week was provided by The Company Stores, Mary Hott, Paul Loomis and Montana Skies
Bill Lynch is our producer. Our executive producer is Eric Douglas. Kelley Libby is our editor. Our audio mixer is Patrick Stephens. Zander Aloi also helped produce this episode.
You can send us an email at InsideAppalachia@wvpublic.org.
Just in time for the Valentine’s Day season to kick in, local author Khary Tolliver has love on the brain, recently publishing his seventh book, “Effortless Love,” a book of love poems and relationship affirmations.
Originally from the Bronx, New York, Tolliver moved to Hagerstown, Maryland, at 12 years old.
He credits a single poetry journal assignment to changing his life and making him into the author he is today.
“I just took that assignment and kept running with it. We had to keep a poem journal. I kept my journal going up until today,” Tolliver said. “I had six previous books before this, and the first two were about everything — life, my son, love, everything. Around the time my third book came, the feedback I was getting from the first two books — and definitely the second book — they liked the few love poems I had in there.”
After receiving feedback, Tolliver thought, “I can do a whole book on love poems,” because he had a lot of poems written since high school.
“For my third book, I just did a whole book of love poems, and that was good, so I did another one. And I just kept going,” Tolliver said. “I love being able to express feelings and hopefully, inspire others, too. I hope to inspire others to write poetry, and I have done that to a few anyway.”
Tolliver said that this seventh book is a book of love poems but also relationship affirmations, reminding readers of some of the simple things in relationships that can be easily forgotten.
As a writer, Tolliver took the self-publishing route.
“Self-publishing is the way to go, for me,” he said. “I am not trying to be a millionaire off of these books. I just hope to touch people. I hope to inspire people, maybe change someone’s ways with my writing.”
Tolliver explained that while he writes to inspire, he writes for himself, not for an audience.
“It is just my feelings, feelings that I see in other people’s relationships, my imaginations, some of my own experiences,” he said. “That is how I write: I put that all into one, and I get what I get out.”
Those interested in hearing some of Tolliver’s poems can also view some readings on his YouTube channel, where Tolliver reads his poems from the pages of his publications.
“One thing I learned so far on this journey is to be able to take criticism,” Tolliver said. “When I write, these are my thoughts, my opinions and my feelings, and I don’t think anyone should really judge you on your feelings and your thoughts. Everyone thinks of love differently and life differently. I don’t think anyone should be judged for that.”
With an ultimate goal to touch lives with his poetry, Tolliver hopes his poetry in “Effortless Love” and his other books will encourage readers to take a step back and live and love intentionally.
“Love is a beautiful thing,” Tolliver said. “Instead of getting the usual — the flowers, candy, teddy bear — get them something different this year, a book of love poems.”
“Effortless Love” and Tolliver’s other poetry books can be purchased online at www.amazon.com under his name.
Most of us learn about poetry as words on a page. But to high school students competing in the national Poetry Out Loud program, the words of poets literally come to life through spoken performance and interpretation. Notre Dame High School senior Ben Long from Clarksburg is one of nine national finalists. Eric Douglas spoke with Long to learn more about the program — and how an unusual year of pre-recorded performances and masked audiences has made things different.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Douglas: Tell me what it’s like to recite poetry. What do you have to do? I mean, there’s no props, there’s just you on stage — you and your voice.
Long: In my particular case we do word swapping, we really go in and do the work to find out the right speed to present the poem. What is the emotional depth of the poem? Where do I inflect? It’s really like making a roadmap. And you do that so that you can get really, really familiar with the poem.
When you get up there and you’re ready to present, it happens through you, it happens naturally. But it definitely is a lot of work. For Poetry Out Loud, it’s you, it’s your body, it’s your movements, your physicality. That is how you bring the poem to life.
Douglas: When you’re on stage, when you’re performing, are you envisioning yourself as the poet, as a character in the poem?
Long: I try to figure out who is speaking. I ask who did the poet write the intended narrator to be? But also, in my interpretation of the poem, who do I imagine the speaker to be? In the one poem that I did “A Blessing” by James Wright, it starts off “Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota…” It’s as if he’s telling a story, so in order to be able to get into that perspective, I sort of imagined that I’m telling the story to a group of friends.
I think my most successful strategy has been just trying to create the character of the narrator and figure out what their motivations are. And then, through speaking the poem, just step into that role.
Douglas: Are you a poet yourself? Or were you interested in this more as a performance?
Long: When I started doing Poetry Out Loud, I wasn’t really writing poetry, it was just a school function through the Performing Arts Conservatory. And I got into it as a recitation competition. But in this past year of doing Poetry Out Loud, I’ve written more original poetry than I’ve ever written before.
I think being involved in Poetry Out Loud, and the resources that surround that, definitely has influenced my interest in writing on my own. At the national level, in the semifinals, there’s an original poetry competition, which I took part in, which is a really cool opportunity, because that gives artists an opportunity to present their own work.
Douglas: You do a contemporary poem, but you also do an older 19th century poem. What’s the greatest challenge for you in that?
Long: I would say that some of the 19th century poetry can be pretty challenging. I do Shakespeare, so I have experience with going in and line by line swapping out words that I don’t understand and figuring out what things mean. But I think there is a challenging aspect to figuring out what the emotional ride of a poem is supposed to be.
It’s really a game to try and find where do I speak softly? Where do I get intense? It’s daunting when you’re doing a poem that’s 40 lines long, trying to figure it out and remember everything. It can be pretty challenging.
Note: This year’s Poetry Out Loud finals will include tape recitations of the poems instead of being in front of a live audience.
Douglas: I’m sure you feed off of the audience to a certain degree. I wonder if doing a pre-recorded talk makes it any different or any more challenging for you?
Long: It’s definitely different and in this year of COVID, I’ve learned so much about how important the energy of an audience is. And even just with the masks how much value there is in a face. I think as a performer it has definitely been a challenging year. Not being able to have big audiences not being able to see the faces of other performers. I’m lucky enough to work with a school and a program who has been willing to do everything they can to keep us on stage.
Douglas: Where do you go from here? Where does this all take you?
Long: For me it’s just an honor to represent the state at this level and to experience the competition. It’s obvious that all of these kids are exceptionally gifted. And so I’ve always thought it was an honor to experience other kids my age, who had put in all this work.
The Poetry Out Loud National Finals will be available through a one-time-only webcast at arts.gov/poetry-out-loud.
Crystal Wilkinson isKentucky’s new poet laureate, the first Black woman to have this title in the state.
Wilkinson grew up in Indian Creek in Casey County. She is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Kentucky, and over her career she has focused a lot of her writing on Black women and their experiences in Appalachia.
She recently spoke with Inside Appalachia’s co-host Caitlin Tan. Wilkinson began by reading a poem that is an ode to tobacco and her grandfather. The poem is featured in her soon-to-be-released collection of poems, ‘Perfect Black.’
**The following has been lightly edited for clarity.
Crystal Wilkinson: ‘Oh, tobacco. You are the warm burnt sienna of my grandfather’s skin. Soft like ripe leather. I cannot see you any other way but as a farmer’s finest crop.
You are a Kentucky tiller’s livelihood. You were school closed in August, the turkey at Thanksgiving, Christmas with all the trimmings.
Crystal — Oh Tobacco.mp3
Listen to the poem here.
I close my eyes, see you tall, stately green, lined up in rows, see sweat seeping through granddaddy’s shirt as he fathered you first. You were protected by him, sometimes even more than any other thing that rooted in our Earth.
Just like family, you were coddled, cuddled, coaxed into making him proud. Spread out for miles you were the only pretty thing he knew. When I think of you at the edge of winter, I see you brown wrinkled just like granddaddy’s skin.
A 10-year-old me plays in the shadows of the stripping room. The wood stove burns. calloused hands twist through the length of your leaves. Granddaddy smiles, nods at me when he thinks I’m not looking.
And you. You are pretty and braided, lined up in rows, like a roomful of brown girls with skirts hooped out for dancing.’
Caitlin Tan: Crystal, that’s beautiful. The imagery that that provokes is incredible. Did you write most of these poems in the past year? Or has it been accumulation of over many years?
Wilkinson: Some of them are fairly new poems. In most ways, this is a book of collected poems, some of them going back for a decade or more. But when I looked at the themes, I realized that the same themes that haunt me now are themes that have haunted my writing for a while.
Tan: When you say things that haunt you now, can you expand on that?
Wilkinson: Well, you know, issues of girlhood, particularly black girlhood, racism, political awareness and how you gain those things, as a young girl growing up in a rural area. How those sort of socio-political issues affect a rural person, and how they affect an Appalachian person perhaps differently than they would an urban person.
Tan: It’s been a really crazy past year. Obviously, we’ve had the pandemic and quite the presidential election, but our country has had almost this reckoning with social justice issues — everything from Black Lives Matter and police brutality, but then also, more recently, Asian American hate crimes. I’m wondering, what have been your reflections from this past year?
Wilkinson: I think it’s been a difficult year. But, I like to dwell on hope. I see a rising Asian movement that is parallel to the Black Lives Matter movement, and I hope that they become the same movement — that collectively we can make change. I feel like our collective backs are against the wall, and it has to end in change.
Tan: That’s interesting how you’re saying that it becomes a “collective movement” — kind of almost one.
Wilkinson: I can almost start crying when I’m talking about it. But, this sort of injustice that we’re seeing, and the lives that are continuing to be lost, and people being beat up on the streets just for being of Asian descent — this all has to stop in some way. We all have to be a part of stopping it and speaking out.
I see that as marching in the streets and holding the government accountable, holding the people who are doing this violence accountable, but also holding our individual selves accountable and our family members. Even when no one’s watching — stopping people in their tracks when they say something disparaging about another race or ethnicity is the way that we have to combat it. I think it has to both happen on a national level and it also has to be simultaneously happening on an individual level to be able to evoke change.
Tan: I want to rewind quickly. Can you tell me a little more about your granddaddy? I just love the imagery that came from that poem.
Wilkinson: I think as a rural man, regardless of race, my grandfather, his love was quiet. He was really concerned about providing for his family. We all knew that he loved us, but his main thing was the crops and making sure that his daily chores were done. I think I do remember him saying that he loved me, but not without provocation. Not without me saying, “I love you, granddaddy.” And then he would say, “I love you” sort of sternly, but I think that was the generation that he came from.
I remember being sort of taken aback as a child when I would go with him out into the fields — how tenderly he treated and doted on his crops. As an early writer, I made these sorts of observations and that was one that stuck with me, that he really loves this land. And I remember thinking, “Does he love me the same way?” And so then I began to look for signs that weren’t verbal, or that weren’t necessarily physical signs of affection toward me. And so I think those thoughts stayed with me, all of these years, and particularly, these early poems in the first section are sort of an ode to my grandparents.
I was raised by my grandparents, and I was reminded of all of that during this pandemic. Living in the city now, being a professor and being sort of tied to Zoom, I got a little stir crazy. One of the ways that these poems began to bubble up was I started ordering seed last year, and I got out there and dug around in the dirt and planted tomatoes and peppers and sort of gave myself an everyday routine in that way when we were sort of on lockdown. Of course, it took me right back to my childhood and remembering those things that I did when I lived back back home in the hills and the work that my grandparents did daily. I remembered how important it is and was, to have your hands in the dirt — for solace, for nutrition and all those other things, too. But there’s sort of a spiritual connection, I think, that I was able to return to.
Tan: Do you think you will have a garden again this year?
Wilkinson: Yes. I feel my ancestors would be ashamed of me because I was so bad at it. Like I went out there with an attitude, like, “I know how to do this. This is part of my upbringing, part of my muscle memory. Of course I know how to plant tomatoes. This will be great.” And my tomatoes were horrible, and my squash died — it was just a mess.
I’m gonna do it again. Hopefully, redeem myself as a woman of the hills. Hopefully, I haven’t gotten outside my raisin’ and remember I can do better this time.
Tan: Can you tell me a little bit about the title of the collection of poems, ‘Perfect Black’?
Wilkinson: Well, it’s part of one of the poems. There’s a poem called ‘Fat and Black and Perfect.’ So that’s about body positivity. But I started thinking about this idea of blackness. So it became a part of the book as well, as far as an overall theme.
In a way, this book is sort of dispelling these sorts of stereotypes about blackness. I think many people think of blackness as being a rural phenomenon. So I think that so many of us who are from the mountains from Appalachia are sort of dismissed or sort of invisible to mainstream society — others don’t really think that we’re here. So the title also sort of leans into that idea that a rural blackness and an Appalachian blackness can also be a perfect blackness. There is no one way to be black in America.
Tan: I think it’s very important. And another thing that you mentioned was the poem about body positivity. I think that’s such an important topic, and it’s something that a lot of people, especially young people, really struggle with. I think that’s really cool that you touched on that. Is there any chance you’d be willing to read one of the body positivity poems?
Wilkinson: I’ll read this one called, ‘Black Body.’
‘My black body is a boulder, a stop sign. Sometimes I think my body is graceful, a song of freedom. Sometimes I think it is something that every eye casts away. I must concentrate if I want to fit into small spaces, slip into the eye of America’s needle.
crystal — Black Body.mp3
Listen to the poem here.
Twice last week, I went without eating, filling up on self loathing and discontent, only to give in to a slice of pound cake and a bowl of ice cream. To stay awake, I drink a glass of tea and watch the flawed reality of television housewives.
Before bed, I stretch myself out along the couch and place my feet in my husband’s lap. I can’t stop thinking about the little black girl in the back of Lando Castillo’s car. “Mommy please stop screaming so they won’t shoot at you.” At four years old, she saw her mother’s unarmed boyfriend shot, bleeding, dead on the front seat — “I can keep you safe,” she tells her mother.
My body embarrasses the famous white woman at the writing conference, as if my fat will rub off on her if she gets too close. When I’m sick I want buttered, sweet rice and a tender hand moving in circles on my back.
Yesterday I ate meatloaf, mashed potatoes and green beans at the Cracker Barrel in Tennessee. The white waitress called me, “baby doll.” Once, I remember feeling the quickening of babies in my womb. Four tiny hands pressing against my navel, four tiny feet pressing against my ribs.’
Tan: Wow. Crystal, the way you’re able to touch on your childhood memories and then your current day experiences and then the Black Lives Matter movement. I didn’t expect you to be able to touch on all of those and within one body positivity poem. Remarkable.
Anything else you want to share or that you’re looking forward to this summer?
Wilkinson: I just had my second shot. So, I’m looking forward to hugging my children. I’m looking forward to getting out of the house a little bit more and having at least some normalcy to my life. That’s what I sort of hope for, for everybody else to be able to get to that. And maybe we can get some distance from this pandemic. So I’m definitely looking forward to that.
Tan: And better tomatoes.
Wilkinson: Yes, please. I’ll call on my ancestors and hopefully they’ll remind me of who I really am.
Crystal Wilkinson, Kentucky’s new poet laureate, has a new book of poems called ‘Perfect Black,’ available this August.
At the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, Jessica Salfia began receiving emails from companies she had interacted with over the years. Most said the similar things, like how they “cared about their customers” and were “looking after their employees.”
Instead of just deleting those emails, Salfia, who is a creative writing teacher from Martinsburg, W.Va., saw the makings of a poem.
Salfia said she encourages her students to keep a “writer’s notebook,” an informal writing journal to record things for writing about later.
So a few weeks ago as Salfia was reading the marketing emails, instead of deleting them she pulled out her writer’s notebook.
“The language was very intense. Everyone was trying really hard to sound sincere. And I kept seeing these same phrases pop up over and over again,” she said.
Some of the phrases included “In these uncertain times,” “As you know, many people are struggling” and “We hope this finds you and your family safe.”
“It all started to sound very lyrical to me,” she said.
As the pandemic moved on, she also noted a change in the language. She said it moved from true sincerity to marketing veiled as sincerity — she recorded those phrases, too.
Finally, Salfia used the first lines from many of those marketing emails to write a poem and it went viral on Twitter. As of May 1, it had more than 46,000 shares and 169,000 likes.
Credit Courtesy Jessica Salfia
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Salfia said she thinks the reason her poem has resonated with people is that those emails are something that many of us have received. She added that she has gotten emails and comments from people who think the poem is hilarious and others have thought it was moving, sad and poignant.
“I teach a unit on ‘Art as Argument’ to my Advanced Placement Language and Composition students. We focus mostly on visual art and we talk a lot about how art is subjective. And that audience really plays a role in how art is interpreted and that’s the goal of good art,” she said.
“People can bring to it the thing that they need to bring to it. Or take away from it the thing that they need to take away from it and so the reactions to it have been really diverse.”
The First Lines of Emails I’ve Received While Quarantining
By Jessica Salfia
In these uncertain times as we navigate the new normal, Are you willing to share your ideas and solutions? As you know, many people are struggling.
I know you're up against it: the digital landscape. We share your concerns. As you know, many people are struggling.
We hope this note finds you and your family safe. We've never seen anything like this before. Here are 25 Distance Learning Tips! As you know, many people are struggling.
Feeling Fiesta today? Happy Taco Tuesday! Calories don't count during a pandemic. Grocers report flour shortages as more people are baking than ever! As you know, many people are struggling.
Count your blessings. Share your blessings. Get free curb-side pickup or shipped to your house! Chicken! Lemon! Artichokes! As you know, many people are struggling.
How are you inspiring greatness today? We have a cure for your cabin fever. Pandemic dial-in town hall TONIGHT! As you know, many people are struggling.
Mother's Day looks a little different this year. You're invited to shop all jeans for 50% off. Yes, buy 1, get 1free! As you know many people are struggling.
Call us to discuss a loan extension without penalty. ACT NOW: Tell Congress Charters should Not Line their Pockets During the COVID crisis. Now shipping face masks as recommended by the CDC. As you know many people are struggling.
Poet Irene McKinney was born in Belington in Barbour County on April 20, 1939. She earned degrees from West Virginia Wesleyan College and West Virginia University and, in 1976, published her first book of poems, The Girl with the Stone in Her Lap. She served as director of creative writing at West Virginia Wesleyan and, in 1984, published another poetry collection entitled The Wasps and the Blue Hexagon. The next year, she won a poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and other prestigious honors.
In 1993, Governor Gaston Caperton appointed McKinney as the state’s eighth poet laureate, succeeding her mentor, Louise McNeill.
She also served as poet-in-residence for the West Virginia Commission on the Arts and was the cofounder of Trellis, a poetry journal. Over the years, she published several other poetry collections, including Quick Fire and Slow Fire, Six O’clock Mine Report, Vivid Companion, and Unthinkable: Selected Poems 1976-2004.
Irene McKinney died in Buckhannon in 2012 at age 72. She was succeeded as poet laureate by Marc Harshman of Wheeling. A fund in McKinney’s memory has been established at West Virginia Wesleyan College.
