Zoom Poetry Reading January 26

Louise Morgan Runyon's fifth book of poems, Where Is Our Prague Spring?, was released in October, 2022.   This book examines Runyon's deep love for the mountains of Western North Carolina; her childhood experience of love there; and her attempts to reconcile this love with the hatred and division found in the present.  A great-niece of Lucy Morgan, founder of the renowned Penland School of Crafts, Runyon honors her visionary and activist family in these poems.

Books are available for purchase now ($20 plus $4 for shipping) ~ see below.  Great gifts!

Louise Morgan Runyon Zoom Poetry Reading

Where Is Our Prague Spring?

Thursday, January 26, 10:30 a.m.

Mountain Wordsmiths Poetry Series

Join Zoom Meeting:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89713039327?pwd=ZkE1RWVlcmltQUxQTzRXdi90bVJIUT09

 Meeting ID: 897 1303 9327

Passcode: 293479

 

               

Says poet Catherine Carter of Western Carolina University, “…Runyon interrogates the place and her family’s long history there to illuminate a complicated tradition of Appalachian progressivism dating both back to and forward from the Trail of Tears.  These thoughtful poems evoke an Appalachia that few outsiders know: simultaneously progressive and conservative, woven into the wider world in unexpected ways, and rooted deeply in the labor and vision of women.”  

Poet Cecilia Woloch says, "I opened to the first poem of Where Is Our Prague Spring? and just kept going – a really smooth journey but with many startling and even breath-taking turns.  The poems are woven together into a narrative that works on many different levels at once. There's a rich, complex and deeply-lived life represented here, instructive for its readers, and inspiring."

Kami Ahrens of Foxfire Museum notes, “Runyon's manner of writing engages the reader in conversations about contemporary themes that reflect stories of the past while providing lessons for the future.  A must-read for any lover of Appalachian literature.”  

Ordering Information

Where Is Our Prague Spring?:  $20 + $4 shipping

To purchase Where Is Our Prague Spring?, click on "Order  Books" on the menu to the left of this page.  You must click directly on the words "order books."

Sample Poems

rime

 

there’ll be rime

at Standing Indian, says Frances

what is rime, we want to know

sunlight sparkling on ice crystals, she says

we leave the cabin and our cousin Frances, age 85

my son and I, on New Year’s Day

 

“there’ll be rime at Standing Indian”

and so there is, the long forest service road

snow-covered with a layer of ice, awash in tiny jewels

twinkling red, yellow, blue, green

the woods a sparkling gem field

on both sides of the road

 

the rime recedes at the trailhead, the sun gone

as we begin the tramp up the mountain

under dark trees, through snow

 

without warning, we come upon a gauntlet of men and boys

standing stock still, spaced out, with rifles –

they are silent, unexplained

they do not look at us

we stop, unsure

 

should we pass?

 

     we plod on

through heavy wind and flying snow

at the top we turn, breathless –

  the view is a vast jeweled panorama

         the air sharp and cold and dazzling

 

we start back with trepidation

but there’s no sign of men or boys with guns

on the way back down, the day is brilliant

 

this morning there was ice all over my car

and on the road tiny crystals of ice were gleaming

a pale comparison to that day at Standing Indian

but the sunny fields were sparkling

the mountains oddly frosted

on listening to a fifty-year old interview

with my great-uncle A. Rufus Morgan

 

my great-uncle Rufus, Episcopalian priest

maintainer of the Appalachian Trail

lover of the mountains

steward of the land

 

he spoke

about being simple

give us this day, our daily bread

just that – our bread, each day

no need for riches

 

he rued the pace of modern life

and that was fifty years ago

he did not find the way of Christ

in the destruction

of the land

 

he grieved the day

the bulldozer was invented

Mammon, always wanting more

 

what would he have made of SUVs

or the obscenely large bumpers and grilles

of oversize pickups in his rearview?

what would he have made

of Walmart?

 

what would great-uncle Rufus think

of today’s “high” Episcopal church, with its gilt and gold

its swinging censors and rich robes

 

we ascribed to low church, a “poor church”

when I was growing up

 

Rufus spoke of the plague of 1918

of ministering to the sick

 

of how he had never seen

so many people die

    and here we are again

 

he spoke

in his rusty, creaky voice

all the “ee” sounds pronounced “ih” –

“rustih, creakih” – faintly aristocratic

but just a product of his ministering

 

he spoke of climbing down off the wagon to kiss the land

upon leaving and entering Macon County

how I feel, after crossing the state line

from Georgia into Carolina

 

I wasn’t close to Rufus

but listening to his voice today

helps me understand myself

 

almost makes me want to be a Christian

so resonant was his love

          for the land, its people

so resonant was his faith

with my own