Jessica Davenport
She grew up on a mountain farm outside of Saltville, Va., with no electricity or running water, miles from a paved road, so most of her writing is related to family and rural Appalachian life, because that is what she knows.
Jessica had an essay published in a Young Poets Section of the Sow's Ear Poetry Review when she was 16. She recently had work published in The Clinch Mountain Review and The Howl at Virginia Highlands Community College, where she is a student. She has been recognized in the Sherwood Anderson Short Story Writing Contest, sponsored by the Smyth-Bland Regional Library, placing second in 2008 and third in 2010.
Ever since she learned to read, Jessica has devoured poetry, stories, and books. Her writing is inspired by an eclectic mixture ranging from Robert Frost to Patrick McManus, and almost everything in between. She typically writes poetry and short stories, drama and humor, but hopes to complete a novel in the near future. Writing, for Jessica, is like an uncontrollable habit: "I'm not sure where the words come from, I just have to let them go."
Natural Origin
by Jessica Davenport
Expected of me to carry a rifle,
check the sheep when dogs got in them,
an eleven year old girl
with hair that I couldn't untangle.
I hungered for the burdens,
to walk to town with my father
and carry back fifty pounds after dark,
needed supplies on my back;
to help butcher and build and cultivate.
I wanted to lead the younger ones,
tell them how things were done,
give the news first when there
was news to tell.
My bare feet the texture of rope,
rough and reading the ground,
the earth that held me.
I appreciated the job of being young,
the food of my bones barely scrubbed of dirt,
the air for my lungs damp with fog.
I stared at the people form town,
strangers that they were,
with curious sympathy. .
For them home was something invented
from paint and furniture,
a place that they made instead of a place
that made them.
I came to suspect that my parents
may not have conceived me,
that they may instead
have carefully extracted me
from among the mountain ginseng.
THERE'S MORE:
"Gifts from Grandfather" by Sam Church
