The sun, a single red eye, burnt what was left of the earth, holding everything beneath it in a heavy, never-dimming glare. It never left the sky, not even in those hours once reserved for night and the stars. The land lay red and uneven under it like flayed flesh, gorges deep and hills steep. Almost nothing remained, all flora…
Randall IveyJuly 10, 2020
A review of An Aesthetic Education and Other Stories (Green Altar Books, 2019) by Catharine Savage Brosman One of the most felicitous occurrences in literature is when a first-rate poet turns his or her talents to the writing of short fiction. Among those who have done so, turning out first-rate stories, have been William Carlos Williams, Dylan Thomas, Elizabeth Bishop,…
Randall IveyJanuary 14, 2020
It was an indelible moment, one that has resonated with me up to the present day. My father and I had gone to whatever permutation of Wal-Mart existed at that time in Union County in late 1982. (Maybe it was still Edwards then, maybe Big K; the chronology is no longer clear so many years later.) He was a supervisor…
Randall IveyFebruary 21, 2019
A review of I'll Take My Stand by Twelve Southerners (LSU, 2006). In this age where the homogenization of our culture is nearly complete, thanks largely to widespread media and rampant industrialism, I'll Take My Stand remains as fresh and relevant as the day it was published more than seventy years ago. Instead of indulging in reactionary daydreams or nostalgia,…
Randall IveyApril 3, 2018
A review of Fred Chappell, Familiars, LSU Press, 2014. The cat, the felis silverstrus catus, both wild and domesticated, has exercised a considerable fascination for the creative artist throughout the thousands of years of Western and non-Western civilization. One need only peruse art and history books containing sculptures of the animal originating in Byzantium and Egypt, among other ancient locales,…
Randall IveySeptember 12, 2017
A Review of Catharine Savage Brosman, Southwestern Women Writers and the Vision of Goodness, McFarland Press, 2016. The term “man of letters” has fallen largely into desuetude over the last few decades, and for good reason. Very few such entities exist nowadays on the literary landscape either in this country or elsewhere. One is more apt to come across a…
Randall IveyJuly 18, 2017
“Family’s getting scarce,” Cousin Jeanette says As Uncle Wallace, her daddy, lies In hospital bed in Union Lashed with tubes that keep him fed. Wallace has outlived all siblings save one, Uncle Autry, “Aut,” father of two sons And one daughter; he fascinated us Younguns with missing thumb. Before them we’ve lost Uncles Russell, Doug, And Hub and Aint Bertie.…
Randall IveyDecember 13, 2016
Every night he watched them, this strange trio, the two men and the woman (that is what it looked like, a woman, that is what it appeared to be in the darkness), make their way by foot along the side of the highway and go over the railroad tracks and disappear to goodness knew where. Then, maybe an hour or…
Randall IveyOctober 31, 2016
Mr. Newhouse’s daughter in Atlanta no longer knew what to do about her younger son, Kyle. He was completely out of control. He violated curfew regularly. He cultivated distasteful friends and assumed their worst characteristics and generally behaved with unwarranted sullenness and disrespect. He had been given everything, after all: a private school education, trips, without chaperone, to places like…
Randall IveyMarch 1, 2016
Variation on a theme by Chekhov “Oh, Eldridge. Well. Ain’t seen you in a week. I thought they must have re-routed you or something, boy.” Eldridge Sartor had spotted Mr. Hitt moseying from his front door to the mailbox as soon as he pulled up. “Naw, sir,” Mr. Sartor replied. Even though Mr. Hitt was now standing no more than…
Randall IveySeptember 29, 2015
From personal experience I can draw any number of anecdotes that would vividly personify William Price Fox, the South Carolina novelist, story writer, and chronicler of the South who died in April at age eighty-nine, a few days following his birthday, another vibrant person claimed by the scourge of Alzheimer’s. This occurred in 1988. I hitched a ride with Bill…
Randall IveySeptember 21, 2015
This story is for Ben Greer, fellow upcountryman. The South Carolina Upcountry, 1955 He hears them talking through the swinging door. Now what are you crying for? He’s the same. Everything’s the same, I tell you. I know but I can’t help but worry. About what? He’s the same and as healthy as can be expected. You’re a man, Dr.…
Randall IveyJuly 7, 2015
A Gentleman in Charleston and the Manner of His Death by William Baldwin. University of South Carolina Press. 2005. Hardcover. 203 pages. A friend and I were talking recently, and she happened to remark to me that she had read somewhere (the source remained undisclosed) that Atlanta was the cultural capital of the South. No sooner had she spoken did…
Randall IveyMay 1, 2015
For Julian Ivey In a time when the dead are forgotten As quickly as yesterday’s news, My father attends funerals In coat, tie, and mirror-bright shoes. This formality is largely gone now When people gather to see off the dead. They might come in workclothes, Tee-shirts, overalls, and caps to cover their heads. Not my father. A child of the…
Randall IveySeptember 9, 2014
It has been much too long since so-called “serious” poetry has had a legitimate hold on the affections and imagination of the American reading public at large. Many culprits stand guilty for this breach between what is one of the most natural forms of literary expression, one closely akin to music, and the time and attention of non-academic readers. Only…
Randall IveyJuly 31, 2014
Revival week at Covenant Baptist Church in Compton, South Carolina, was a time of great festivity. Some claimed it rivaled, in spectacle and variety, the state fair in Columbia. Indeed it had gotten to be such a large event, with ever increasing attendance year by year, that the church organizers, ten years before, moved the proceedings from the humble brick…
Randall IveyJuly 10, 2014
Were it not such a looming and very possible prospect on our collective cultural horizon, a discussion of the demise of the book in its traditional form, that is, a compendium of knowledge bound in the confines of paper, cloth, and glue, would be not only amusing but almost surreal. The book has always been with us, ever since Mr.…
Randall IveyJune 4, 2014
Recent Comments