Delta Deep Down

Amazon.com Price: $30.00 (as of 19/04/2019 21:35 PST- Details)

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Description

“The image that Jane Rule’s book both begins and ends on is haunting precisely because it captures the past that’s at all times lurking within the Delta’s present. There’s 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 wrong way, a ghost returning to history.”–Steve Yarbrough, from the introduction

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. For the reason that 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 one another, and how each and every has in turn been changed. Weatherbeaten 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 each photograph of the inhabitants–black and white, old and young, wealthy 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 known as home, and how, through her photographs, the hold this fertile ground claims on his heart is reinforced. Delta Deep Down offers 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.

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