In a November 2022 interview with The Smoky Mountain News, storied writer Fred Chappell, a Haywood County native who was 86 at the time, was asked what the culmination of his life meant to him looking back.
“It’s taught me that I didn’t deserve what happened to me — I was too lucky for my own good,” Chappell said in his signature matter-of-fact tone.
A longtime resident of Greensboro, Chappell passed away on Jan. 4. He was 87 years young.
As one of the most beloved and acclaimed writers in North Carolina and greater Southern Appalachia, Chappell accumulated a vast catalog of work, dozens of books poetry and prose — covering the vast unknowns and intricate beauty of the world around us, many through the lens of the mountains of his youth.
Chappell was close to his mountain family, including his grandmother. Donated photo
“I was a farm boy, which means you start work at 5:30 in the morning and you go to bed at 8:30 [at night],” Chappell said. “So, I didn’t roam around very much, but my friends did. And, every once in a while, I’d get to go with them. I remember Haywood County very vividly and with a variety of emotions.”
Throughout his 87 years on this earth, Chappell received an array of honors: Bollingen Prize, T. S. Eliot Award, Thomas Wolfe Prize, Roanoke-Chowan Poetry Prize (seven times), North Carolina Award for Literature and France’s Prix de Meilleur des Livres Étrangers. From 1997 to 2002, he was the poet laureate of North Carolina.
And for 40 years, Chappell taught creative writing at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. What started as an educational journey for Chappell in 1964 parlayed itself into a teaching career that knew no bounds in the countless lives it shaped and molded.
“That’s what I wanted to do was teach college. That was always my goal. That was my mission in life, to teach school, and that’s what I did,” Chappell said. “So, I was mostly very happy with it. I enjoyed my colleagues, enjoyed my students. I wasn’t always crazy about the administration, but nobody ever is.”
In 2022, Chappell was the subject of a documentary about his life and career. Titled, “I Am One of You Forever,” the film, directed by Michael Frierson, takes an in-depth look at one of the most important literary voices to ever emerge from the Tar Heel State.
Cold Mountain. File photo
“You know, I just did what I had to do and I didn’t expect people to pay much attention to it. So, [a documentary] is kind of extravagant,” Chappell said. “It’s like reading an old diary or something like that. But, what’s most interesting is watching Michael Frierson put it together, photograph it and put it in continuity.”
And, in his straightforward — yet heartfelt, hardscrabble ways and means — Chappell took a moment to reflect on just what it was about poetry that’s captivated his mind and existence as far back as he could remember.
“It seems to me, [poetry is] the most natural kind of a speech there is,” Chappell said. “It’s the most natural, the most elevated, and the most fun — poetry is always attractive. Everybody is immersed in poetry, whether they know it or not.”
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A life immersed in the written word: Questions posed to the late Fred Chappell