Susan's Pick
Kettle Bottom by Diane Gilliam Fisher
The West Virginia mine wars of 1920-1921 are the subject of many non-fiction and fiction books. In this slim volume of poetry the lives of those in a coal camp come brilliantly alive. The 50 poems in Kettle Bottom are the voices of various members of the community after an explosion and as the events head toward the mine wars. Coal miners- white, black, foreigners- have their voices speaking of fears and anger, frustrations. A mother's sorrow when her thirteen year old son dies, a young woman who only has her husband's dirty coal handprints on the wedding quilt to remember him by, a school teacher, young children; each life captured by Ms. Fisher's rhymes and lines. You think you know the history of the coal camps and mine wars? Kettle Bottom's inhabitants will reach into your heart and history will tear at your soul with these simple poems. History comes alive in Kettle Bottom.
(This title is available through the West Virginia Library Commission Book Discussion Group program. Contact Susan Hayden for more information.) http://www.wvlc.lib.wv.us/html/bdg/index_bdg.html
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