Kirk Judd

My People Was Music (Reprint)

Includes QR code for MP3 download: Powerful spoken word performances, featuring some of West Virginia’s Finest poets and musicians.

by Kirk Judd

ISBN: 9798985524284

$18.80 (20% off cover price & US shipping) through Sheila-Na-Gig Editions

About the Author:

Kirk Judd has lived, worked, trout fished, and wandered around in West Virginia all of his life. Kirk was a member of the Appalachian Literary League, a founding member and former president of West Virginia Writers, Inc., and is a founding member of and creative writing instructor for Allegheny Echoes, Inc., dedicated to the support and preservation of WV cultural heritage arts. Author of two other collections of poetry, Field of Vision (Aegina Press 1986) and Tao Billy (Trillium Press 1996), and a co-editor of the widely acclaimed anthology, Wild, Sweet Notes – 50 Years of West Virginia Poetry 1950-1999, he is widely published. Kirk is internationally known for his performance work combining poetry and old-time music, and he has performed poetry in Ireland and across West Virginia at fairs, concerts, and festivals for many years.

Book Blurbs:

“Kirk Judd combines 3-D images and powerful rhythm and rhyme to perfectly express his subjects—birth and death, songs and silence, and everything in between. With compassion and wisdom, he provides for readers and listeners a man-sized, blood-warming antidote to the frequently encountered negative stereotype of his beloved Appalachia. In short, Kirk Judd is not only a poet’s poet; he’s a people’s poet.” ––Barbara Smith

“This is true poetry without the pretense of thin poesy. These are unvarnished words that hang like weightless images in front of your consciousness. This is poetry from someplace deeper than the heart. (Kirk Judd) can reach far inside more quickly than anyone I know.” ––Lee Maynard

“A wise poet knows to choose his epigraph well and when Kirk Judd chooses Louise McNeill’s verse to launch his own words, I knew there would be smooth, sweet sailing ahead. Known to many as a superior raconteur, these poems reflect Judd’s ease with that kind of familiar banter. Not to say that Judd doesn’t take risks here. Few poets these days would fearlessly drape their poems with the grit of dialect, but he does and with a success that should make readers come away with a closer experience of West Virginia and its people.” ––Marc Harshman – WV Poet Laureate

Read the Amazon Reviews from the first printing!