Work continues on Holy Ghost People in anticipation of next month’s SXSW premiere, with plenty of creative decisions still to be made. So I’m drawn back to the old literary quarterly Appalachian Heritage for inspiration and some good grounding (each issue is archived with a few poems online for free).

I’m a SoCal guy in spite of my best intentions – “California Kev” as I was known in grad school in Iowa – so I reference these poets and their subject: the mountains and their evolving meaning. Often the subject is loss and the poems become elegies for peaks that have been flattened – these move me the most because I can relate. I love the mountains of Southern California and the solitude and peace they’ve brought to me.

Also blown away by the poet Crystal Wilkinson. I know I’m not the first.

Anyway, here’s a little Holy Ghost poem by Wendell Berry.

DARK HORSE

How charming a fellow is Satan, 

That manly prince of Hell,

So moral, so electable,

And he knows the Bible so well!