The River Hills & Beyond: Poems

Lou Crabtree's collection of poems come straight from the hills and heart of Appalachia. A cherished writer in Washington County, Virginia, Lou was honored as one of Virginia's Cultural Laureates in Literature. Author Lee Smith discovered Lou in one of her writing classes and fell under the spell of her stacks of poems and stories, immersing herself in "Lou's primal, magic world of river hills and deep forest, of men and women as elemental as nature itself...Lou Crabtree was that rarity--a writer of perfect pitch and singular knowledge, a real artist." From Lou, Lee also came to recognize "the theraputic power of language, the importance of the writing process itself." Lou's need to write was on her mind as she developed her letter-writing character Ivy Rowe in Fair and Tender Ladies. Lou Crabtree grew up on a river farm in Washington County, Virginia, one of ten children. She graduated from Radford Normal School, taught school, and studied drama in New York City in the summers. Lou married a farmer and had five children of her own. As a young widow, she moved into the town of Abingdon with her children, continuing to teach and write. In retirement, she enjoyed exploring a new interest in outer space during what she called her "porch years" -- those that she spent talking with company on her front porch, watching the world go by, and writing. Lou died in 2006 at the age of 93. As she told Lee Smith, she was ready. "We are all going in a circle and death is not the end of our circle. It is just a word that some people have. Why, it should be thought of as a beautiful part of life. I'm not a bit afraid of dying." Excerpt from "Smith Creek No. 2" Calling back Those years of planting harvesting Breathing touching among our meanderings In and out of lives where we pursued All strange and wonderful things Down deep into the mysterious dark Where the roots wind about the heart. Have you seen a locust hill by moonlight? Or, the morning after it rained, A field of purple phlox? To think a flicker came as he did that year And from all the fallen trees and cliffs He chose my apple tree to live.