On Long Mountain

by Morgan, Elizabeth Seydel

• ISBN13: 9780807122532
• ISBN10: 080712253X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1998-02-01
• Publisher: Louisiana State Univ Pr

Summary

Black Shawl emanates from Kathryn Stripling Byer's fascination with female ballad singers in southern Appalachia, whose voices haunt the mountains still, and from the image of a black net or shawl being dragged over the ground, plumbing the depths, collecting bits and fragments of a woman's life. The singers and storytellers of this collection are struggling to answer the query of the book's epigraph: "What will you make of this?"

Author Biography

Kathryn Stripling Byer is poet-in-residence at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, North Carolina.

Table of Contents

Perseid Night	p. 1
Unarmed	p. 2
Calligraphy of a Virginia Night	p. 3
Hole in the Ground	p. 5
Over Afton	p. 7
At the End of August	p. 9
Letter to Conrad	p. 10
Gnat Facts on NPR	p. 11
Ways to Go	p. 13
Sensing Winter	p. 14
Like Young Men	p. 15
Even in Foxes	p. 16
Valdosta	p. 17
Caught Again	p. 18
Moon Arrangement	p. 19
Nameless	p. 20
Momentary Travels	p. 21
A Walk Back to Hollins	p. 22
Long Mountain Otter	p. 23
Painting the Blue Ridge Red	p. 25
Swing, Boat, Table	p. 26
Poetry Reading	p. 27
"Willem de Kooning Declared Incompetent"	p. 28
The Linings of Tunnels, the Undersides of Roofs	p. 29
Uffizi Explosion	p. 31
Morning of Words	p. 32
Stayed	p. 33
Can't You Hear Me Singing, Alfred Prufrock?	p. 34
Blues in the Blue Ridge	p. 35
At Epidaurus	p. 36
Swimming in the Aegean	p. 38
Oracle	p. 40
"Now Words Are Surrounded by Spaces"	p. 41
Who Plays Your Piano?	p. 43
Family Life	p. 44
Atlanta	p. 45
Early Lessons	p. 47
Over My Head	p. 49
Pictures with Cigarettes	p. 50
Recorded Storm	p. 51
My Daughter's Daughter Takes to the Street	p. 53
Enthusiasm	p. 54
Unbalanced	p. 55
The Statesman	p. 56
Engagement Day	p. 57
Leaving the Butterfly Bush	p. 58
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.