Gurney Norman Ancient Creek Cover
Lexington resident, author and educator, Gurney Norman is a readily recognized advocate of the culture and beauty of the Appalachian region. He grew up in the mountains there and his written works ardently express his love and respect for the area. After working as a reporter for his hometown paper, the Hazard Herald, he joined the UK faculty in 1979 and now serves as Director of the English Department’s Creative Writing Program. He received the much respected title of Poet Laureate for the Commonwealth of Kentucky in 2009, a few short years after receiving the Helen M. Lewis Community Service Award – an award that recognized his significant contributions to the Appalachian region through his involvement with and service to its people and their communities. It is with this passion that he provides us “Ancient Creek.”
In a presentation that is no subtle throwback to the folktales told to us and by us in our lifetimes, Norman places the reader down in Holiday Land, located not far from what was once the beautiful and naturalized Appalachian region. King Condominium now rules the area and, as Norman provides: “...wasn’t satisfied with just half. He wanted it all. He’d heard that this Hill Domain had a lot of beautiful rivers and valleys and meadows and great herds and flocks of wild game … So he sent his army down to dispossess the natives and put them to work as laborers for his empire.”
Resistance comes in the form of an elusive hero named Jack. He and a band of natives, and the ancient Aunt Haze from the remote Creek area of the Hill Domain, defy the edicts of King Condominium and break the law with their forbidden telling of stories in their regional dialect, “sitting around an outdoor fire on a hillside, laughing and talking in illegal accents … whittling strange images from blocks of cedar … making an unauthorized wooden chair by hand.” When caught, many endured the unbearable punishment of “life at hard labor as public relations workers for various imperial enterprises,” the author writes. The King’s resolve to capture and eliminate these heathens is absolute.
When the administrator of Holiday World, Black Duke, hears that the King is venturing to his facility for a respite, he has his staff arrange for a theatrical event, “Haw Haw,” in an attempt to entertain and distract him. His head staff member has arranged the event with a slight twist in the entertainment, the brothers of Jack held hostage in a plot to capture Jack when he attempts to rescue them. But as with all good folktales, all is not what it appears and the evening’s show does not go as Black Duke had anticipated.
In satire that drips as heavily as torrents from the leaves of a richly wooded area in a rainstorm, Norman serves Appalachia again with his telling of “Ancient Creek.” And his writing, as delightfully exaggerated as Alexander Pope’s in “Rape of the Lock,” sheds a spotlight on the exploitation that has plagued the Appalachian region for decades, and continues to this day. Originally recorded as a spoken word piece in 1975, it is now in book form for the first time.
With much the same stream of thought as “Ancient Creek,” Norman is also the author of the novel “Divine Right’s Trip” and “Kinfolk,” a collection of stories.