Scan barcode
snowmaiden's review
4.0
There is much to admire in these poems. The language emphasizes the difference between the natural world of rural Kentucky where Ora feels at home and the highly artificial world below the ground where her husband Eli, a coal miner, spends most of his waking hours. I loved a lot of the imagery for its own sake, but I’m not enough of a West Virginian yet to understand all the many allusions to folklore and mining that these poems contain. After I’d made my way through the book as best I could, then I discovered the two pages of notes at the end. They answered some, but not all, of my questions. People well-versed in southern Appalachian history may well get much more out of this book than I did. (I also need to say that the design of this book was simply gorgeous. It’s rare to find a poetry book these days with illustrations, but this one has them between sections, and it added a lot to the experience.)
More...