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Segovia's Fingernail

Autor Lee Pennington
en Limba Engleză Paperback – 12 noi 2019
When Lee Pennington transferred to Berea College in the spring of 1958, the second semester freshman was immediately was named news editor of the Pinnacle, the student newspaper. With way more naiveté than he needed, he was asked to go to Boone Tavern and interview a musician who was going to give a concert at the college. Here is what Lee remembers about the moment. Having grown up in the head of a holler in Greenup County, KY and what I knew about the world probably would have fit fairly easily in our water bucket. I had never heard of Andre Segovia and simply had no idea he was already recognized, even in the fifties, as the world's greatest guitarist. He invited me in and for the next 4 hours politely answered all my questions and even permitted this mountain boy an indiscretion I cannot imagine now, and even to this day, I carry some embarrassment when I think about it. On the floor, in an open case, was one of the two hand-made guitars that had been made exclusively for Segovia in Spain. I looked at Segovia and asked, "Would you mind if I play your guitar?" I even cringe now, these 61 years later, of having asked that question. This gracious gentleman, without any hesitation, said, "Go ahead." I am certain, or fairly certain anyway, that it was the only time that "Wildwood Flower" was ever played on Andre Segoiva's guitar! What I am even more certain of is that this mountain boy stood before a musical genius and received an act of kindness when that boy's own innocence opened the moment to such an unexpected gift. At Berea College, when Segovia performed in the Phelps Stokes Chapel, we students paid 35 cents to hear him. It was the most amazing concert I have ever witnessed. With his guitar on his lap, and to a standing room only crowd in Phelps Stokes with no amplification whatsoever, Segovia held us spell bound for a very long concert-well over two hours. As I remember, there were nine standing ovation encores. The memory of my encounter with Segovia was indelible. Years later, I was thinking about that concert-what it meant to music, what it meant to art in general, what it meant to all of us, I came up with the idea for the poem "Segovia's Fingernail." I wanted to tell about two kinds of people-one who was totally immersed in art, and another who merely wanted to be seen at artsy things. Then the idea grew. Thus, Segovia's Fingernail, the book, was born.
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Specificații

ISBN-13: 9781937979751
ISBN-10: 193797975X
Pagini: 142
Dimensiuni: 152 x 229 x 8 mm
Greutate: 0.2 kg
Editura: Hydra Publications

Notă biografică

Pennington, who grew up in Greenup County, Kentucky, is the author of nine other books of poetry including: Scenes from a Southern Road, April Poems, Songs of Bloody Harlan, I Knew a Woman and Thigmotropism. Appalachian Newground was released in April of this year and was entered for nomination for the Pulitzer by the publisher. This is Pennington's third nomination for the prize in poetry as his I Knew a Woman and Thigmotropism were previously nominated for the Pulitzer in 1977 and 1993. Pennington's life-long love-affair with writing all started in a one-room schoolhouse with the Farnham family and a row of strawberries. "When I was in the fourth grade, I went to school out in a little one-room schoolhouse on White Oak," said Pennington. "We had this history book, it was structured like a historical novel. It was about the Farnham family and it went from the settlement of the country until the late 1800s. I was disappointed that this family wasn't brought into the 20th century, so I wrote about 80 pages, adding two or three more generations to bring them up to the time that I was in school, that's the first writing I remember doing." And he never stopped. "I was in high school at McKell in 1957, the same time that Jesse Stuart was principal. Jesse came over to the Portsmouth Times and said, 'why don't you let one of our high school students report McKell news?' and they said they'd be happy to if he had someone in mind. So Jesse came back to school and said to me, 'you're our reporter.'" Pennington wrote various articles for the Daily Times, primarily sports, during his junior and senior years of high school, earning himself $3 per article. "My mother and father had a little farm, and one of the things that we raised were strawberries. My parents always gave me a row and the money that came in from that row was mine to keep," explained Lee. "When I got my first check from the Times, I went to Jesse all excited because the writing made me more money than my row of strawberries. So I told Jesse, 'I've made more money writing than I have farming,' so I've decided to become a writer rather than a farmer." After graduating from high school, Pennington attended Berea College and went on to graduate school at the University of Iowa. In 1984, State Legislature named him the Poet Laureate of Kentucky. Pennington was a professor of English at the University of Kentucky Jefferson Community College, teaching creative writing and English for 34 years until he retired in 1999. He also taught at several other schools and universities including poetry at the Jesse Stuart Creative Writing Workshop at Murray State University for 10 summers.