Thanks to Kate Long, Colleen Anderson and Debbie Haught, who each read a poem by Louise McNeill for MountainWord to celebrate National Poetry Month and to highlight a new release of McNeill’s selected poems called Paradox Hill: From Appalachia to Lunar Shore, Revised Edition. The book is edited and with an introduction by A.E. Stringer. It’s published by Vandalia Press at West Virginia University. We hope you enjoy the sounds of these remarkable Louise McNeill poems:
Kate Long reads “Snow Angels.”
Colleen Anderson reads “Threnody for Old Orchards.”
Debbie Haught reads “The Martian Box.”
Click here to order the book.
“Louise McNeill had a voice, both in person and in the poems, that was direct and forceful. Her toughness came from her resistance to the merely decorative or folksy. We still need such a voice. Her poems project a powerful presence: it is resonant with character. It is the sound of the griefs and meanings and dignities of the land and the people. It strikes me as absolutely authentic.”
Irene McKinney, Poet Laureate of West Virginia and author of Vivid Companion and Unthinkable
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