Mark Cornelison|UKphoto
Crystal Wilkinson
Crystal Wilkinson was “wildly bashful” as a child, she says, “but I was always an observer. I preferred to write things down more than I preferred to speak.”
Wilkinson included many observations from her childhood growing up on her grandparent’s farm in Casey County, Kentucky, in her debut story collection, “Blackberries, Blackberries.” She graduated from Eastern Kentucky University with a journalism degree, and worked on her stories and poems in the odd hours between caring for her children and working first for the Lexington Herald- Leader, then the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government and the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning, where she was assistant director.
Wilkinson is also the author of “Water Street” and “The Birds of Opulence,” and her debut poetry collection, “Perfect Black,” will publish this summer. A 2020 U.S. Artists Fellow who also teaches at the University of Kentucky, Wilkinson has earned numerous awards and recognition for her writing. In April, she was named as Kentucky Poet Laureate and will serve two years in the role.
Congratulations on being named Kentucky’s Poet Laurette. What are your plans for the post?
I’ve been thinking about what to do and how to do it, and I’m starting to get a lot of requests. I suspect my first year as poet laureate will still be a lot of virtual events, and by the second year it will open up to more in-person events. I do want to get on the road as soon as possible.
I’m lucky to have known or have met every Kentucky poet laureate going back to Mr. [James] Still. They’ve all given me advice and told me about some of their adventures, and I’ve had lots of opportunity to talk with the people I’m close to, like Frank X Walker and Gurney [Norman] and George Ella Lyon. Sena Naslund is a mentor of mine, and Maureen Morehead — I feel like I know all of them, to some extent.
I don’t see this role as promoting my own work — although that will be a part of it — as much as promoting the work of other Kentucky writers. To start off, I want to do a segment at least once a month called ‘Stories across the Bluegrass,’ where I’ll interview people and talk to them about their work.
Everyone has a story to tell and, having lost both my grandparents and getting to an age now that most of the generations that came before me are no longer living, I think every time an older person dies, a whole host of stories leaves with them.
When I worked at the Carnegie Center, there was a woman from Eastern Kentucky who I became really close to. Her name was Mexie Smith-Cottle, and she had been a telephone operator working for GE, but she always wanted to be a writer. So, after she retired, she started taking classes at the Carnegie Center, and she wrote and self-published a book called ‘And the Road was Mostly in the Creek,’ which is a jewel of a little book. I think there are a lot of people who could be motivated to write their stories down.
Writing is a solitary activity, but one that benefits from community.
You do write in solitude, most of the time, and you’re often unsure if your words will have an impact — what to do with them, how to fix them, how to revise them. We often think of publishing as only one way, but the definition of published is to make public.
Even if it’s just a small group, reading your words out loud and having them give you what I call in my classes ‘love notes’ and ‘help notes’ is very beneficial.
"Having a community of writers has been one of the most important things to advance my work and, I think, helpful at any level."
Having a community of writers has been one of the most important things to advance my work and, I think, helpful at any level —whether you’re an elementary school student, an aspiring or professional writer or a senior citizen. I certainly found a community with the Affrilachian Poets and at the Carnegie Center.
I’ve always written, but I was really bashful and quiet. I had my professional life with a journalism degree and raising my children, and I worked for the city government, where I wrote newsletters and the occasional speech for the mayor and things like that, but all of my fiction and poetry I kept off to the side.
I remember getting my gumption up enough to read at one of these local readings, and that was the first time I met Frank Walker and the other Affrilachian Poets, who became a huge part of moving my writing forward.
I also remember Mary Ann Taylor-Hall and James Baker Hall coming up to me after a reading and saying, ‘I really like the part where this happened.’ I was young and trying to raise my children and working all day, sometimes working two jobs, and it was wonderful to have that kind of feedback and affirmation.
You and spouse Ronald Davis also owned Wild Fig Books for many years. What was that side of the business like?
I think that my and Ron’s downfall was that we are both writers and artists — he’s trained as a graphic artist and my training is in journalism. We did a lot of community building and had a lot of community support and love, but our business acumen wasn’t on the forefront, which it needs to be in a for-profit business. We learned as we went, and I think did pretty well selling books, but it’s not like selling groceries — if someone comes in and buys $200 worth of books, you’re not going to see them again for awhile.
What fed our bookstore was me, primarily, as we were building the business. When I was doing my speaking engagements with my publishing career, a lot of funds that came in from that went straight back into the bookstore. But we loved it. I don’t think I’ve loved anything more.
Do you think the arts are primarily a driver of culture or more of a byproduct of culture?
I think some of both. Lexington is bookstore-rich, which is a blessing, but if we could have picked up and dropped the bookstore in a surrounding small town where there wasn’t already one, we might have helped create a happening.
I saw that happen with Soaps and Such in Stanford, Kentucky. It’s located in an old hotel on Main Street, which the owners refurbished. They have a soap factory in the basement, and one of the owners is also a writer, so they carry books inside their little shop and they host readings and art exhibits. It offers something that you don’t have to leave home to get. I think shopping local and playing and doing local drives the economy, and if you can get it going, it also drives an art culture.