sunlit pictures in the book of the dead

 

Finnish poster for the movie Deliverance

James Dickey:

-  wrote poetry

-  wrote the novel Deliverance (1970) and the screenplay for the movie (1972)

-  read one of his poems at the inauguration of U.S. President Jimmy Carter, in 1977.

_________________________

     

     On You Tube there's a video of James Dickey reading a poem to an audience - the video title says, "c. 1969."  [Circa 1969].

"Looking For The Buckhead Boys"

    by James Dickey

Some of the time, going home, I go

Blind and can't find it.

The house I lived in growing up and out

The doors of high school is torn

Down and cleared

Away for further development, but that does not stop me.

First in the heart

Of my blind spot are

The Buckhead Boys.  If I can find them, even one,

I'm home.  And if I can find him

Catch him in or around

Buckhead, I'll never die:  it's likely my youth will walk

Inside me like a king.

First of all, going home, I must go

To Wender and Roberts' Drug Store, for driving through I saw it

Shining         renewed         renewed

In chrome, but still there.

It's one of the places the Buckhead Boys used to be, before

Beer turned teen-ager.

                           Tommy Nichols

Is not there.  The Drug Store is full of women

Made of cosmetics.  Tommy Nichols has never been

In such a place:  he was the Number Two Man on the Mile

Relay Team in his day.

What day?

My day.                  Where was I?

                                          Number Three, and there are some sunlit pictures

In the Book of the Dead to prove it:  the 1939

North Fulton High School Annual.  Go down,

Go down

To Tyree's Pool Hall, for there was more

Concentration of the spirit

Of the Buckhead Boys

                  In there, than anywhere else in the world.

                                        Do I want some shoes

To walk all over Buckhead like a king

Nobody knows?               Well, I can get them at Tyree's;

It's a shoe store now.  I could tell you where every spittoon

Ought to be standing....

------------------ [it keeps going - this is an excerpt from the beginning of the poem]

It's interesting watching him and listening to him read it in the video.  He reads with such confidence - at the start, he plunges right in, and powers ahead.  At intervals, the audience gently laughs their appreciation and recognition.

     A comment under the video says the poetry has "good line breaks and homely, country specifics."

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