provincialism and the prodigal sons and daughters

It was fascinating talking with artist Michael K. Paxton last night and finding out how powerful were the parallels between his story and mine, in terms of the tepidity of hs reception for many years in our home state. It seems that I am not unique in not feeling singed by the warmth as a returning champion.

We speculated on the cultural and sub-cultural forces that drive this, a sense almost that we are worse than carpetbaggers for having left the state to excel, then are suspected of returning to rub their noses in this success. Nothing could be further from the truth, and yet, it is based on a model of provincialism, of pride (which goeth before a fall) that is explicable if not desirable.

We are in the early stages, still, of the Digital Renaissance, a change in the way we communicate that transcends physical, cultural and geo-political borders. The talent and intellect of the people of this state matches any other group or peoples, and in many ways offers fresh fodder, for the thought and creativity engines of the world, the only thing holding us back is our insistence that we must stand apart. This creates a cultural inbreeding that is both undesirable and counterproductive.

The fact that there are those who do achieve after leaving the state is not an indictment of the state as a breeding ground for excellence, but as a market for that very excellence. I can not, to this day, find a market in corporate America within West Virginia for my talents and resume that I found in the consulting environments of Washington, DC, twenty years ago, so we have a brain drain, and all the hub zones and special pork-barrel projects can do little to stop this.

When I spent a year in Mississippi, I was honored for my accomplishments as a writer, playing Master of Ceremonies for the Mississippi Gathering of Poets, being invited to the state library convention, speaking in schools. Here, after a year since I returned "home" I have made aggressive overtures to several schools and been rejected by all, the local public library does not return my calls or emails, and the three reads I did for National Poetry Month were set up by myself with great difficulty and were ultimately only covered by the student newspaper at West Virginia University (The Daily Athenaeum) and the Fairmont newspaper, the Times-West Virginian (which is where one of the reads took place). The local Morgantown newspaper, even after I honored one of their photographers by using a shot he had taken of me, that had appeared in the paper previously, as the cover of a book has still not reacted to my presence, at all.

Having spoken with Mr. Paxton, I have come to realize how common this experience is, and why it may not have been that easy for the AEI (The Appalachian Education Intiative) to get their 50 outstanding creative artists to sign on...there are probably many out there, who unlike Michael and myself, are more bitter than challenged, and thus take away and keep away their presences, not wishing to be further rejected or ignored or criticized. Then, the "locals" who have managed to run off the success stories (perhaps out of a sense of envy or paranoia) strut like tom turkeys in the forest just before the gun's report, stupidly prideful.

Thus they manage to keep their home state "pristine" and condemn their sons and daughter, friends and lovers, to a cultural inbreeding that keeps the state's economic and cultural development on a slow track to extinction.

Wake up, West Virginia. "Montani Semper Liberi" is not a rallying cry for jingoism and isolationism, it is a statement of individual freedom and pride.