Lee Pennington

Broschiertes Buch

Appalachian Newground

Beschreibung

Appalachian Newground is Lee Pennington's twentieth book and the first book he has published after a 23-year hiatus. His books of poetry, essays and short stories have won two nominations for Pulitzer Prizes, earned him the title of Poet Laureate of Kentucky in 1984, and the prices of his former titles have "gone through the roof," as they have been small editions and have never been reprinted. In this book, as he did in his former publications, Lee Pennington addresses the world of nature and spirit in a unique way, born in him and nurtured by his Eastern Kentucky birthplace among the hills and "hollers" of a mountainside farm. With no running water or electricity, he found the beauty and wisdom of his environment inspiring him to write poems on birch bark and leaves before finally publishing books on paper. His close friend, Jesse Stuart, was his best critic and inspiration throughout the years of Jesse's life. Pennington's 39 years of teaching Creative Writing in colleges brought him not only masterful skill, but thousands of adoring students, many of whom have become well-known writers themselves. In this volume you will find the distillation of Pennington's creative genius in his poems in their quiet, passionate intensity, as well as a treatise on his childhood and a screenplay contemplating the past, present and future as seen by humanity and all-pervasive nature in the form of "Ragweed."

Autor

Pennington, who grew up in Greenup County, Kentucky, is the author of nine other books of poetry including: Scenes from a Southern Road, April Poems, Songs of Bloody Harlan, I Knew a Woman and Thigmotropism. Appalachian Newground was released in April of this year and was entered for nomination for the Pulitzer by the publisher. This is Pennington's third nomination for the prize in poetry as his I Knew a Woman and Thigmotropism were previously nominated for the Pulitzer in 1977 and 1993. Pennington's life-long love-affair with writing all started in a one-room schoolhouse with the Farnham family and a row of strawberries. "When I was in the fourth grade, I went to school out in a little one-room schoolhouse on White Oak," said Pennington. "We had this history book, it was structured like a historical novel. It was about the Farnham family and it went from the settlement of the country until the late 1800s. I was disappointed that this family wasn't brought into the 20th century, so I wrote about 80 pages, adding two or three more generations to bring them up to the time that I was in school, that's the first writing I remember doing." And he never stopped. "I was in high school at McKell in 1957, the same time that Jesse Stuart was principal. Jesse came over to the Portsmouth Times and said, 'why don't you let one of our high school students report McKell news?' and they said they'd be happy to if he had someone in mind. So Jesse came back to school and said to me, 'you're our reporter.'" Pennington wrote various articles for the Daily Times, primarily sports, during his junior and senior years of high school, earning himself $3 per article. "My mother and father had a little farm, and one of the things that we raised were strawberries. My parents always gave me a row and the money that came in from that row was mine to keep," explained Lee. "When I got my first check from the Times, I went to Jesse all excited because the writing made me more money than my row of strawberries. So I told Jesse, 'I've made more money writing than I have farming,' so I've decided to become a writer rather than a farmer." After graduating from high school, Pennington attended Berea College and went on to graduate school at the University of Iowa. In 1984, State Legislature named him the Poet Laureate of Kentucky. Pennington was a professor of English at the University of Kentucky Jefferson Community College, teaching creative writing and English for 34 years until he retired in 1999. He also taught at several other schools and universities including poetry at the Jesse Stuart Creative Writing Workshop at Murray State University for 10 summers.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Winchester Cottage Print
• Seitenzahl: 200
• Erscheinungstermin: 26. März 2016
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 210mm x 148mm x 11mm
• Gewicht: 266g
• ISBN-13: 9780981844213
• ISBN-10: 0981844219
• Artikelnr.: 44775249