My wife's previous husband, Jim Cox, came to the US from Shropshire many years ago. After working in middle-management jobs, he left Sacramento and moved here to the Sierra Nevada foothills, making his living hauling junk. He loved these foothills, and wrote poetry about their beauty, and about the Gold Rush and the railroad that are so much a part of the history of this area. And he recited his poetry as he did Appalachian clog-dancing, with a big smile on his face. About a year before his death, Jim went on a performance tour with the Barbary Coast Cloggers of San Francisco.

It's my understanding that reciting poetry while clogging is an Appalachian tradition, but Jim's the only poetic clogger I ever heard of. He made poetry fun.


-Joe-