Voices from the Appalachian Coalfields (Appalachian Writing: Working Lives) - Softcover

"These found poems are not hear-say, but face-to-face, first hand description. Made me feel like I was back in that underground world. They're absolutely wonderful." Kenneth Dangerfield, retired miner of 37 years in the mines /...../

"As I write this, the death knell of Appalachian coal is being sounded. Not today, not tomorrow, but soon, coal mining will only support a few people in the region. Mike, Ruth, and Doug Yarrow have performed a great service here. In Voices from the Appalachian Coalfields they have with great care and skill preserved the voices and images of the men and women who performed the dangerous work of mining in order to power the nation through the 20th century. Coal miners have received little thanks for their sacrifice. May these voices remind us that the remaining miners deserve support as they face an uncertain future." Denise Giardina, author of Storming Heaven and The Unquiet Earth

Interview Poems by Mike and Ruth Yarrow, Photographs by Douglas Yarrow/.../
Voices from the Appalachian Coalfields is a powerful, compelling collection. The "found" poems of the miners and their spouses along with the photographs of mines and miners combine to bring its readers into the mining community, to feel the challenges of the work, mentally and physically, on the miners and their personal lives. The Yarrows have done a great service by compiling and editing these interviews into poems. These voices have a lot to say about mining life specifically, but also about work and love, and how we all try to balance those things in our daily lives. Their clarity and authenticity, their authority and earned wisdom, and above all, their passion, demand our attention. ~Jim Daniels, author of Eight Mile High: Stories and Apology to the Moon: Poems