Kettle Bottom (Paperback)

by Diane Gilliam Fisher (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"American poetry is the larger for this extraordinary book." -- Eleanor Wilner

"Fisher probes the truth of coal camp history, then holds its darkness in the light of her brilliant lines." -- Joyce Dyer

Product Description
Based on the historical and social events of the West Virginia coal mine wars of 1920-1921, Kettle Bottom imagines the stories of miners, their wives, children, sisters, and mothers; of mountaineers, Italian immigrants, and Black families. These people organized for safe working conditions in opposition to the mine company owners and their agents. Fisher listened closely and the result is a book of vivid, rhythmic, heartfelt poems that address a violent time with honesty, levity, and compassion. Kettle Bottom is about how a community lived in the presence of constant danger and the choices the residents made. These are people to look to today.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 88 pages
• Publisher: Perugia Press (June 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0966045971
• ISBN-13: 978-0966045970
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #515,947 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Magnificent, July 30, 2004

By	mattiemae (texas) - See all my reviews

What Diane Gilliam Fisher has accomplished in her collection of poems, Kettle Bottom, is rare. Hard hard stories told in the softest of voices. In the same way a whisper commands our attention when a normal voice would not, Fisher's tales stop and tempt and hold us.
I don't believe poetry books are to be read in one sitting. It is hard for me to digest them all. I read. I absorb. I read. I absorb. But with Fisher's book, I find it hard to wait. I have to pick it up again, and listen to the next whisper.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very moving, March 23, 2006

By	nhopps (Hinton, WV United States) - See all my reviews

This book is beautifully written, with such poignancy and description that you can't help but be touched by the lives of the people of this coal-mining area and era. Certain passages bring tears to your eyes and instill strength in your soul.

5.0 out of 5 stars people's voices, February 21, 2009

By	John E. Reilly (Wheeling, WV USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is an incredibly powerful book of poems. Slender as it is, it is difficult to read at one sitting. You read a poem like "Pink Hollyhocks" or "Milk" and you have to put it down, walk into another room to get your breathing back. Each portrait contained in these first person poems contains a world that is at the same time universal and specific. Centering on the mine wars era of 1920s West Virginia, it touches anyone who has any knowledge of the importance of community in hardscrabble violent times, and the intensity of private emotions for anyone trying to express the inexpressible.