Degree Name
MA (Master of Arts)
Program
English
Date of Award
5-2022
Committee Chair or Co-Chairs
Thomas Alan Holmes
Committee Members
David M. Jones, Scott R. Honeycutt
Abstract
For decades now, the Appalachian community has been internally combatting two equally strong feelings—an inherently rich love of the mountains and a conflicting urge to leave the mountains. In recent years, Appalachian writers have produced a new literary tradition of identifying, discussing, and remedying this dilemma. Jim Wayne Miller’s 1997 The Brier Poems unapologetically explores the Appalachian community’s complicated relationship to its region. bell hooks’ 2012 Appalachian Elegy: Poetry and Place and Savannah Sipple’s 2019 WWJD and Other Poems then expand Miller’s exploration as both hooks and Sipple collectively represent voices that have often been left out of the stereotypical Appalachian narrative; their literature widens the lens of Appalachian experience and repositions the importance of the Appalachian canon. hooks and Sipple are contemporaries in conversation with Miller as all three authors have declared the Appalachian experience to have never been hegemonic—reclaiming, embracing, and uniting a modern Appalachian identity.
Document Type
Thesis - unrestricted
Recommended Citation
Dawson, Madeline, "Loving the Mountains, Leaving the Mountains: The Appalachian Dilemma and Jim Wayne Miller’s The Brier Poems" (2022). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 4028. https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/4028
Copyright
Copyright by the authors.