Coal, Baby by Anne Clinard Barnhill

Coal, Baby is a penetrating collection of poems set in the hills of West Virginia. This is a poetic telling of a people: “men whose skin blackens with age, / whose lungs fill daily with dust, / women under thirty with seven kids, no teeth.”  Anne Clinard Barnhill tells their story with no malice or judgment.  She only gives us a view. Barnhill’s poems are profound and beautiful.

Leah Maines, author of Beyond the River, winner of the Kentucky Writers’ Coalition Chapbook Competition (KWC Press)