Participation Type
Performance
Session Title
Voices from the Appalachian Coalfields
Session Abstract or Summary
The book Voices from the Appalachian Coalfieds will be presented in dramatic fashion with photography slides of the late 1970s coal miners, mines and the contract strike. Poets Larry Smith (editor) and Ruth Yarrow (co-author with deceased Mike Yarrow) and poet Sherry Cook Stanforth will do readings from the interviews as poems in the words of the miners and their families. *We will also have some of the original miners there to share their words. The program presents the story of coal, industry, labor, and particular women as the first entered the mines. It is also literature and conveys the language of the Appalachia region in West Virginia and Virginia.
Presentation #1 Title
Voices from the Appalachian Coalfields
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
The book Voices from the Appalachian Coalfieds will be presented in dramatic fashion with photography slides of the late 1970s coal miners, mines and the contract strike. Poets Larry Smith (editor) and Ruth Yarrow (co-author with deceased Mike Yarrow) will do readings from the interviews as poems in the words of the miners and their families. The program presents the story of coal, industry, labor, and particular women as the first entered the mines. It is also literature and conveys the language of the Appalachia region in West Virginia and Virginia. We will be joined by poet Sherry Cook Stanforth, and by special arrangement we will have two of the miners from the book there to share their words, Sue Ella Kobak, miner's daughter, and Joseph Mulloy, retired miner.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Larry Smith, editor and publisher of Bottom Dog Press, is a poet and fiction writer.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #2
Douglas Yarrow is a documentary photographer and activist in the labor movement. He taught high school in West Virginia for 20 years.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #3
Ruth Yarrow has been an educator and activist for peace and justice. She is also a retired college professor and a haiku poet.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #4
Sherry Cook Stanforth teaches at Thomas Moore College and is a singer and musician of Appalachian music. Her book Drone Strings: Poems has been published in the Appalachian Writing Series from Bottom Dog Press.
Voices from the Appalachian Coalfields
The book Voices from the Appalachian Coalfieds will be presented in dramatic fashion with photography slides of the late 1970s coal miners, mines and the contract strike. Poets Larry Smith (editor) and Ruth Yarrow (co-author with deceased Mike Yarrow) will do readings from the interviews as poems in the words of the miners and their families. The program presents the story of coal, industry, labor, and particular women as the first entered the mines. It is also literature and conveys the language of the Appalachia region in West Virginia and Virginia. We will be joined by poet Sherry Cook Stanforth, and by special arrangement we will have two of the miners from the book there to share their words, Sue Ella Kobak, miner's daughter, and Joseph Mulloy, retired miner.
