It's happened yet again! I, like the man in Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner," must have the cursed albatross around my neck!

What can I say? I was hijacked, my work interrupted by yet another must-read book! This time, the interruption was sparked by a post on the Facebook group "Knoxville, Tennessee, History and Memories" about how a road in that city got its name. And that led to the life and work of a daughter of the man for whom the road was named.
Merchants Drive (it's the first exit you come to after you merge onto I-75 N from I-640) was named for C. L. Merchant, a Methodist dairy farmer who lived nearby. He had a daughter named Jane, who became quite famous as a poet, having her work published in Good Housekeeping, The Saturday Evening Post, the Christian Science Monitor, and many other national magazines and newspapers. She also had a number of books published.
The Facebook post featured photos of several newspaper clippings about Merchant, her writings, and her unusual circumstances. It also mentioned a biography that had been written about her.
My interest was immediately piqued for a couple of reasons. First, she was yet another once-renowned writer from my hometown of whom I, amazingly, had never heard. [Merchant thereby joined Frances Hodgson Burnett (The Secret Garden) and Anne Armstrong (This Day and Time) in my Knoxville-writers-never-heard-of-till-now club.] Merchant had been at the apex of her career at the same time I was growing up there; yet, I had never heard of her. Neither she nor her works were mentioned in any English classes I had.
Second, being a writer myself, I'm always looking for exemplars whose lives and writings might offer lessons I can use to improve my own writing. Merchant's unique circumstances and how she wrote in spite of (or was it because of?) them offered potential inspiration for me.

So I ordered the book: A Window on Eternity: The Life and Poetry of Jane Hess Merchant by Sarah Jorunn Oftedal Ricketts. When it arrived, I immediately set aside my work in progress to read it.
Jane Hess Merchant was born on November 1, 1919, in Inskip, at the time a suburb of Knoxville. She was a frail baby, and the doctor was afraid she might not live long.
When the child was 18 months old and still learning to walk, she fell and broke her right leg. When the break healed and Jane tried again to walk, her left leg broke. Attending doctors termed her condition "brittle bones," and they knew of no cure. (The term for the condition today is Osteogenesis imperfecta.) For fear that she might suffer more broken bones, Jane was confined to her bed from the age of four.
But even the safe haven of her bed couldn't protect her fully. She later became deaf and still later began to lose her eyesight.

Whereas many people would have given up and pined away in unproductive self-pity, resigned to a short, unfulfilled life, Jane adopted a more positive attitude, determined to turn her "handicap" to good use.
Unable to attend school, she was taught at home by her mother, with occasional help from her two sisters and brother. But the bulk of her education was gained through her voracious reading habit. And she began to write.
Her first published piece, "a 'letter' from her dog," appeared in The Portal, a magazine for 12-to-18 year old Methodist girls. She was only 16 when it was accepted. The same year that piece was published, she won a contest sponsored by The Progressive Farmer for her poem "No Other Acres."
Jane found it impossible NOT to write. Ricketts wrote, "Her survival depended on it, as if, in forming words on a page, she could discover and encounter herself. . . ."
Most of Jane's writing is religious and inspirational in nature, but some of it focuses attention on nature: birds, trees, flowers, seasons. And some of it is humorous. I found two little ones to be especially funny. "On Reasoning with an Adolescent" consisted of just two words: "Why try?" Another, "Basic Requirements for Rearing the Young," was a bit longer: "Hope and soap."
I won't spoil the narrative of the book by telling more just in case some of my readers want to find and read it. (Besides, I still haven't finished it myself!) But Merchant went on to write more than 3,000 poems; publish 10 books of poetry, devotional books, mostly for Abingdon Press, and children's books; and thousands of letters, many of them to lifelong correspondents. Foremost among her books are Halfway Up the Sky, Petals of Light, The Greatest of These, and Think About These Things.
Carl Sandberg read and was impressed by Jane's works. Jesse Stuart, a poet laureate of Kentucky and one of my favorite authors, wrote to Jane asking to buy an autographed copy of Think About These Things. He even wrote to Abingdon praising her work, describing her as "the writer of some of the finest religious poems that are being written in America today. Her poems remind me of the early religious poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. . . ."
Merchant died on January 3, 1972, at the age of 52.
Broken bones, bedridden, deaf, nearly blind. Yet, she continued to write. And her words continue to inspire 52 years later. I know they have inspired me, and I'm glad I finally learned about her.
With such an exemplar as Jane Merchant, what's my excuse for not writing more? (Perhaps the interruptions of must-read books?) I'm going to jump right back onto that work in progress--just as soon as I finish the Merchant biography!
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