All These Ghosts

Poetry is meant to be savored. So mostly poetry and I are not really a thing. I devour my reading. Yet, I know this author for his fiction and I will say the poems took my breath away in a devoured sense. If I were a savoring reader I can bet they’d be even more exquisite. The interview of the autho......more

Apparently the key to me loving poetry is an Appalachian author.......more

Silas House's writing continues to be a gift to these mountains. Even though he's known first and foremost as a novelist, he nailed poetry. I've dog eared my favorites. My heart has wept though I physically have not. So many bittersweet words. So many ghosts.......more

It feels campy to say, but I feel changed after reading this. I know all books change us to some extent but I feel something in me evolved or was born as I read this. I related so much to so many of the themes: being “country”, the working class, the trailer, the loss of hope, the search for hope, t......more

I heard Silas House read at a local Episcopal church and he was amazing. He talked about his roots in poverty and rural Kentucky culture. He said that Appalachian stereotypes have produced an embarrassment and deep self loathing in many of its literary works. He didn’t say J. D. Vance but it is clea......more