New Book by Jackson Co. Native Gets Rave Reviews from KY's Best Writers

A just-published book by Jackson County native Mike Norris has been singled out for high praise by most of the state’s best-known writers. Mommy Goose’s APPALACHIAN MELODIES has been called “magic,” “a timeless classic,” and “an American and Appalachian original,” to name three examples of the acclaim the book has earned.   
 Like the four other books written by Norris, APPALACHIAN MELODIES is illustrated with photographs of custom woodcarvings by renowned folk artist Minnie Adkins. Work began in 2019 just after publication of their fourth book, Ring Around the Moon. Norris says he was ready to take a break after Ring Around the Moon was released, when he received a call from Adkins. He remembers her saying, “Well, I’m just stuck here alone at home because of this covid—we might as well do another book.”  He goes on, “As soon as the call ended, I was ready to get started and wrote ‘Sally Ann’s Reply,’” one of the first poems in APPALACHIAN MELODIES 
The creative process that was sparked by that phone call took almost five years to complete. “We knew this would be the last of the Mommy Goose books,” Norris says, “and that made us want to end on a high note.”
That extra motivation resulted in the biggest book the pair has produced, illustrated with photographs of more than 200 new carvings by Adkins.
 “Minnie would only take ten rhymes at a time,” Norris says. “Any more than that , with all the different characters and animals, it gets confusing.” He says that unlike on earlier projects, they worked by phone and mail: discussing the carvings needed; looking at pictures of pieces in progress; and then Adkins mailing the completed pieces from her home in Elliott County to Lexington, where Norris lives. “Every few weeks, it was Christmas,” he says. “A big box would arrive and one at a time I’d unwind the bubble wrap and see how Minnie’d made what I’d imagined into something you could hold in your hand. She nailed it every time.”
 In addition to its larger size, the writing in this book also breaks new ground. Along with themes that run throughout the Mommy Goose books (the power of words and kindness, to name two), APPALACHIAN MELODIES also explores topics such as procrastination, self-sacrifice, and aging. And it includes a several longer tales—“story rhymes” that keep the reader in suspense until the end—wondering, for example, how a gnat can get the better of a mountain lion and a kangaroo or how a duck can survive swimming in a pond that’s home to a hungry snapping turtle.
 Besides these differences, the new book reflects Norris’s  Eastern Kentucky growing up more directly than past works. “This is more Jackson County than anything we’ve done before,” he says. “A lot of it comes from the way we talked  and the things we talked about and in and around McKee in the late ‘50s and ’60s.” The action of one the poems takes place mostly on the main road that runs through Jackson County—U.S. 421. “This one was written around Halloween,” Norris says, “so it’s a little spooky.” As he often does, Norris recites part of the rhyme:

 The Moon-Eyed Man

As I was walking Four-twenty-one,

I came upon a moon-eyed man.

His eyes so wide and skin so white,

He asked if he was headed right.

I declared I didn’t know,

And asked him where he wanted to go.

His eyes lit up and he grinned at me:

“Why, son, the courthouse in McKee.

Got business there, I recollect,

Pledge to pay, debt to collect.”

I pointed west and nodded him on.

Out the road stretched, straight and long,

But when I looked back, the man was gone.

 

They had a big trial in town that day,

But the judge took sick and was carried away.

The moon that night turned deathly white….

 

Asked what happened to the Moon-Eyed Man, Norris again looked back to his childhood. “Well, it’s a little like those serials we used to watch at Bud Hughes’s theater across from the courthouse,” he says. “To learn the hero’s fate, you had to wait a whole week. For the Moon-Eyed Man, you could probably get on Amazon and have an answer in three days.”
 Along with validation from many of Kentucky’s best authors, college and university professors have also praised the poetry of APPALACHIAN MELODIES. Dr. Milton Reigelman, Centre College, J. Rice Cowan Professor Emeritus of English, writes, “Mike Norris’s books are timeless classics that will be in classrooms, libraries, and homes a hundred years from now. His 'Waltzing with Elephant,' for example, is one of the most effective uses of dactylic rhythm in narrative poetry."        
 Asked about this comment, Norris says, “‘Dactylic’ is another word for waltz rhythm—ONE, two three. ONE, two, three. ‘Waltzing with Elephant‘ is set at a folk dance, where the dances are more about moving and changing partners than touching. But a waltz is different. One, it’s all about touching with the same partner all the way through, and, two, since it’s typically the last dance of the night at a folk dance, it often determines who leaves together. In this case, an attractive young woman is waiting to see which handsome young man is going to ask her for the last dance, when all of a sudden this very tall, big-in-every-direction young man with a really big nose comes up and holds out his hand. (Because of his appearance, he’s been given an animal nickname.) The young woman is so startled, she accepts his hand and walks out on the dance floor. The poem is her speaking, reflecting on her unthinking decision to “‘waltz with Elephant’.” Again, Norris recites the opening verses:

Waltzing with Elephant

Elephant dreamily,

Dancing me awkwardly,

Pulling me next to his

Very long nose.

This could be serious,

Possibly dangerous.
Praying he never does

Step on my toes.

Two-ton calamity,

Stomping out one-two-three.

Song’s like a century,

Still on it goes.

Hoping he’ll take a break

Soon to recuperate.

Why did I stay so late?

Lord only knows….

Asked how poem ends, Norris replies, “Let’s just say that by the time the dance is over, the dynamics have changed.”
Norris reports that he is busy working on a sixth book and presenting programs of storytelling and music at schools, bookstores, and museums around the state. He will be one of the featured writers at the Kentucky Book Festival at Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Lexington on Nov. 2nd. He will do a special presentation at 11 a.m.
APPALACHIAN MELODIES is available at the University Press of Kentucky website ( https://www.kentuckypress.com/9781985901155/mommy-gooses-appalachian-melodies/ ) where you will also find a link to a recording of Norris’s song, “Waltzing with Elephant” The book is also available for online order at Amazon, Barnes and Nobel, VitalSource, and other websites.