Description: Every poem, whether describing a connection with Appalachian wildlife, retelling the lyrics of a classic country tune, reflecting on the speaker's bloodline, or giving voice to famous musical figures of the past, strikes a powerful chord.
Brief description: Marianne Worthington is a poet, editor, and cofounder of Still: The Journal. She lives and teaches in southeastern Kentucky. Her work has appeared in Oxford American, CALYX, Grist, Cheap Pop, Chapter 16 andother outlets. She coedited Piano in a Sycamore: Writing Lessons from the Appalachian Writers' Workshop and is author of a poetry chapbook.
Review Quotes:
The book of poems you hold in your hands is both a history and a hymnal, full of the sounds of the southern mountains: a grandmother singing to charm a skittish dog, the classic country voices of the Grand Ole Opry, the unlovely and essential songs of jaybirds and crows, and the pilfered ballads of the mockingbird. Like the poet herself, The Girl Singer is funny, heartbreaking, unsentimental, and wise. It's as pitch-perfect a book as I have read in a long time.
--Doug Van Gundy, author of A Life above Water