A Brief Anthology of Kentucky Poetry

I moved to Kentucky⁠—by way of Asheville, North Carolina, Jackson, Mississippi, Memphis, Tennessee and Hernando, Mississippi⁠, if you really want to know—4 years ago in May.

One of the first things we did one Sunday was trek to the Athens Schoolhouse Antiques Market on Mother’s Day weekend. If you’ve never been before, it’s a collection of various vintage and antique vendors set up in the Athens-Boonesboro School. You can find almost anything in there⁠—a man, originally from Mt. Sterling, who sells all kinds of clocks, there is another man set up on the gymnasium stage who sells old wooden refrigerators and other furniture, and my personal favorite, a man who sells victrolas set up in the opposite corner of the gym. In between, there is a variety of odds and ends, pictures, Kentucky horse memorabilia, and old victrolas⁠—

Ever since we restored our old house, I always keep an eye out for interesting or unusual Kentucky-centric items.

As we wandered through the gymnasium and looked and mulled and passed things by, a small green book caught my eye: A BRIEF ANTHOLOGY of KENTUCKY POETRY. The title graphics are two sets of three straight lines above and below. And, written on the top set in very scripty handwriting in blue ink—from a time when everyone wrote beautifully—was the name: William M. Justice.

“How much?” to the older man sitting nearby in his green lounge chair. “Three dollars,” was his reply.

The book itself is a slim little thing with a faded green paperback, originally made to look leatherish, most likely. It seems like it was kind of sleek in 1936. Published by the University of Kentucky, Department of University Extension, Lexington. It looks like the pages are water damaged and in a few years they will be too fragile to handle.

I can’t remember if I cracked it open in the car or waited until I got home (waiting doesn’t sound like me) and I looked in the table of contents, a pencil mark jutted out from the list of names.

Justice, William M. ……………………………………………………………………….100

What a find!

So, because you’ll probably no one will ever see this book in a million years, I thought it would be fun to share his poems with you. His introduction was really the best part.

At the time of publication, he was 43.

WILLIAM M. JUSTICE

1893—

Was born in a one-room log cabin in Pike County in 1893. He did not learn to read until he was eleven years of age. Like Lincoln, he was a railsplitter when he was a boy. In 1926 he graduated from the Pikeville HIgh School, and in 1929 he received the A.B. degree from Berea College, standing second in scholarship in a class of seventy-nine. Poetry bubbles from his heart like water from a mountain brook. The poems in this selection are taken from his volume entitled Tears and Laughter and Other Poems. Mr. Justice is the principal of a school in Pike County.

There are a total of five poems, which are, I have to say, are sappy, but I’ll share this one: