Coalseam

de Karen Blomain

Coalseam: Poems from the Anthracite Region brings together thirteen voices to honor the rich heritage of the anthracite coal region of northeastern Pennsylvania. All of the poets collected here have lived in the anthracite area for significant parts of their lives. Several, such as W. S. Merwin and Jay Parini, spent their childhoods in Scranton but left the region for schools and jobs elsewhere and did not return; others, like Thomas K. Blomain and Vincent Balitas, still reside in their native communities. What these poets share is the deep effect that the lives and land of northeastern Pennsylvania has had on them. Working obliquely or directly, they all explore the central metaphor of mining - its language and landscape - as the locus and method of creative expression. Represented in this collection are a variety of forms, ranging from the lyric to the long narrative to experimental forms. Its themes reflect a multiplicity of concerns and experiences. The texture of family life and ethnic heritage, the confluence of cultures, the brutality and danger miners experience each day, the scars on souls and environment are all present here. Coalseam is redolent with the language of mining, factual information that provides a texture and context, and a lively, dramatic sense of the history of a region reaching back thousands of years - long before the first group of immigrant miners arrived. Humor and myth are evident as well - the humor that enables humanity to endure even the most trying situations and the articulation of personal and regional myths that protect the dignity of marginalized lives. Religion, and the place it holds in the life of a community, is a pervasive theme in these pages, as it has been in the coal region since its settlement. Coalseam is a celebration of the beautiful, ordinary moment - and the extraordinarily beautiful moments - in the history of a region. All who are familiar with the coal region will find in these pages a homecoming. Coalseam is equally hospitable to the first-time visitor. The transcendent moments of that place, those lives, this work, are given to the reader as clear and glittering as shiny pieces of coal - all the facets exposed to reveal the detail of each separate shard.