A professor emeritus of Thomas More University, Sherry Cook Stanforth is the founder/director of Originary Arts Initiative, providing arts and nature-inspired programming for diverse populations. Her community activism embraces values of cultural curiosity, story-listening, and creative empathy. She is the managing editor of the regional literary journal Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel, and edited Riparian: Poems, Short Prose and Photographs Inspired by the Ohio River (Dos Madres Press, 2019). Her poetry collection Drone String (Bottom Dog Press, 2015) reflects the storytelling and music traditions of her Appalachian heritage. She performs in two bands, Tellico and Tangled Roots, and enjoys hiking, beekeeping, and studying native plants.
What past event do you often reflect upon, and how did that event change you?
At seven, I claimed a Smoky Mountain pocketknife as my souvenir. Mom warned me it was sharp. “No, it really isn’t,” I replied, running my thumb over the blade, startled by pearling blood. One year later, four generations of family women gathered in a North Georgia kitchen to taste a neighbor’s homegrown popcorn. Taking up the pan, my great grandma’s voice sang Blue Ridge wisdom: “That stove is hot. Don’t touch it.” Then, the red glow faded. I touched the burner—and drew back a blistering palm. Twice told and twice marked, I learned to hear my elders’ words.
How does your work add to the quality of your life?
I am a beekeeper. A wearer of clover chains. Tree names matter to me. The ecological law that “everything is connected to everything else” shapes my work. How might one species impact other lives unseen? The toxic sludge of binary-oppositional thinking threatens to suffocate all of creation. Searching for higher ground, I recently left university teaching to cultivate community storytelling and story-listening experiences through workshops, retreats, anthology projects, and eco-arts excursions. These imaginative circles seed diverse interpretations of home place, kinship, joy, and struggle. I embrace a wild ideal—that stories are strong enough to bend lines and save lives.
Tell us a story you would like to share with the world.
I confess to stealing a glow-in-the-dark marble during Sunday school. A gritty life lesson involves head lice. I’ve experienced sacred encounters with twin albino fawns, an angry hellbender, a Yucatan cat named Sisa. Visible signs of love abide in roadside workers pausing to honor my great grandfather’s funeral procession … in my friend giving her kidney to a local teacher. My story unfurls with a jump roping girl (me) pausing to ponder wild-spun clouds and the faraway tune created by chainsaw gribble and Bob White calls. The November wind snaps of dried hickory leaves and her mama’s cast iron supper. Even her muddy gym shoes hold a miracle. She vows to always remember this moment of being so alive.
Author photo: Courtesy of author
Side bar image: Pixabay/Edar
