More on this book.... Excerpt From Life After Mississippi You can also read selected poetry from this volume. Introduction by Willie Morris Jim Autry and I have many things in common. We both grew up in Mississippi, then went away from it to work in the magazine trade, to write and to edit other people's writings. What we share most strongly, however, is a regard for our native ground, for the people and traditions there. Jim was raised in the hill country of North Mississippi, in Benton County. I consider myself a flatlander, having grown up in Yazoo City, where the hills meet the delta. My people always sympathized with the folks "up north in those hills" who had to wrench a living out of hard ground. Yet we had an inordinate respect for the hill people's endurance and strength, their tenacious religion and friendships and family ties that seemed as tough as the rocky land that spawned them. These are the qualities that I sense in my friend, Jim Autry, both the man and the poet. In his distinguished verse he shares with us the power of his faith in mankind, his sense of community in the face of adversity. He takes us back and forth between the past and present, between the youth that we remember and the future we face together. His poems reflect the lessons life teaches: "Grabblin'" is about rites of passage, about where courage comes from; "Flavors" reminds us of youth and innocence and the simple joy of being; "Fishing Day" takes us back in a rush to the great Mississippi outdoors; "Ordination" ia about change, about new beginnings. Life After Mississippi is Autry's tribute to his Mississippi roots, to the places and people that nurtured him and which now sustain him in the corporate boardrooms of America, in anonymous, scented hotel rooms, on 747 flights from New York to L.A. while he sits strapped in his seat writing about half-forgotten funerals in country churchyards. As a successful executive he keeps his mind on his work but his heart, as they say, is down home. Yet it is with me still in the fall smell of wood smoke from some suburban chimney, in an Atlanta taxi driver's turn of phrase, in the quiet of an old church in Bavaria... For what Autry is writing about, again and again, is home. He listens to voices heard and unheard, and he touches something deep in our hearts. He is an observer whose task it is to remind us of those small but important details that add up to a significant understanding. "Life," he writes, "is largely a matter of paying attention." - Life After Mississippi by James A. Autry © 1989.  All rights reserved. | Author | Poet | Speaker | Businessman | Consultant | | Praise | Excerpts | Poems | Order Info. | Videos | Picks | Links | Hard Choices Real Power Love & Profit Life & Work Confessions Nights Under Spirit