Delta Deep Down - Hardcover

Jane Rule Burdine

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1604730897 ISBN 13: 9781604730890

Publisher: University Press of Mississippi, 2008

Synopsis

The Mississippi Delta evokes mystery, beauty, and hardship in equal measures. Its haunted fields, turbulent history, and resilient people have fueled countless songs, tales, and literary works, and its presence resonates strongly in the construction of the American South.

In Delta Deep Down, photographer Jane Rule Burdine captures the region with clarity and warmth. Since the early 1970s, Burdine has used the Delta as her muse, traversing and documenting the ever-changing landscape in color photographs. These powerful images reflect how the Delta and its citizens have responded to each other, and how each has in turn been changed. Weather-beaten shacks, cotton and soybean fields, industrial equipment, people at work and play, and cloud-draped, endless horizons are all seen through Burdine's lens. The Delta's past and present mingle in every photograph of the inhabitants―black and white, young and old, rich and poor―in moments of contemplation, hard work, and joyous revelry.

Novelist and Indianola native Steve Yarbrough offers a touching, personal introduction that explores how Burdine's photographs reveal the place he once called home, and how, through her photographs, the hold this fertile ground claims on his heart is reinforced. Delta Deep Downoffers an unforgettable portrait of a quintessential Mississippi place and the people who abide in it.

Wendy McDaris provides historical context and locates Burdine's work among current trends in fine art photography.

About this title

Book Description:

The image that Jane Rule's book both begins and ends on is haunting precisely because it captures the past that's always lurking within the Delta's present. There is something surreal, almost Kafkaesque on display here. A farmer with his back to us drives a tractor straight ahead on a lonely dirt road. Big woods loom on the left. On the right, at the edge of a field of cotton, a grey-clad horseman moves in the opposite direction, a ghost returning to history. (Steve Yarbrough, from the introduction)

From the Inside Flap:

Photographs that capture the land, people, and ever-present spirits of the Mississippi Delta

About this edition

• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1604730897
• ISBN 13: 9781604730890
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 112
• Editor: Wendy McDaris