Porch Poems

Porch Poems a chapbook by

Susanna Connelly Holstein, Cheryl Denise, Kirk Judd & Sherrell Runnion Wigal

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ABOUT THE BOOK: What happens when four poets, friends for years, gather in a beautiful place to sit on a porch to talk, live, breathe, create poetry for days at a time? These friends all have led workshops and presented poetry and stories to audiences for many years. All are well-known and well respected practitioners and teachers of their craft. But these poetry days were different. These days offered the poets a chance to take a deep, reflective dive into their own approach to the art, at their own pace, with sharp, insightful input from each other. Not only were their skills examined, but also their relationships to the work, to the landscape around them, to the poems that seemed to spring from the mountain air as they laughed, cooked, mused on the porch swing, and absorbed the creative juices surrounding them in that special place. The result is this remarkable chapbook containing some of the output of those sessions over a period of several years. The poems each have distinctive voices, but they are not attributed in the text to the individuals, emphasizing the exceptional bond these poets established with each other and with their surroundings. A lovely and intriguing book.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Cheryl Denise grew up in Elmira, Ontario. She went to the red brick Mennonite church beside the white clapboard Old Order Meetinghouse. After nursing school, she went into Voluntary Service and worked as a public health nurse in La Jara, Colorado. She fell for her future husband while helping to make suppers at the Homeless Shelter where he was volunteering. Now they live in the intentional community of Shepherds Field, near Philippi, WV, in a timber framed home they built when they were young and brimming with energy. Cheryl is the author of the poetry books, “Fences” (2022), “What’s in the Blood” (2012), and “I Saw God Dancing” (2005), all published by Cascadia Publishing House, DreamSeeker Books, Telford, PA. She has a spoken word poetry CD, “Leaving Eden” (2012) available on Amazon. She enjoys hiking, canoeing, biking, and cross-country skiing with her husband, Mike Miller. Visit her on Facebook at Cheryl Denise, poet.

Susanna Connelly Holstein’s work has appeared in the poetry anthologies “Fed From the Blade” (Woodland Press), “Voices on Unity: Coming Together, Falling Apart” and “Diner Stories” (Mountain State Press) as well as in short story anthologies and online journals.  She was a columnist for 10 years for the regional magazine “Two-Lane Livin’” and has been blogging since 2007. A traditional storyteller and ballad singer, Susanna has performed for national venues and to audiences across West Virginia.  In 2015 Susanna was named a West Virginia History Hero. When not writing or performing, she sells antiques and works in her gardens in Jackson County.

Kirk Judd, founding member of West Virginia Writers, Inc., has lived, worked, trout fished and wandered around in West Virginia all his life. Kirk was a member of the Appalachian Literary League, a former president (and JUG recipient) 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 3 collections of poetry “Field of Vision” (1986), “Tao-Billy” (1996), and “My People Was Music” (2014), and a co-editor of the widely acclaimed anthology, “Wild, Sweet Notes – 50 Years of West Virginia Poetry 1950 – 1999”, he is widely published. He has been featured three times on American Public Radio on “The Poet and The Poem” with WV native Grace Cavalieri and has appeared on the acclaimed public radio show Mountain Stage. Kirk was honored to be one of 5 readers selected for the installation ceremony of Louise McNeill Pease as WV Poet Laureate in 1979. He is internationally known for his performance work combining poetry and old-time music and has performed poetry in Ireland and across West Virginia at fairs, concerts, and festivals since the 1970s.

Sherrell Runnion Wigal is a poet originally from Roane County, West Virginia, now living in Wood County. In past years she served as director of the West Virginia Writers’ annual writers conference and has been the past coordinator of the literary events tent at the West Virginia State Folk Festival. She conducts numerous creative writing workshops throughout the area. Sherrell has presented her work throughout West Virginia and surrounding states. Her list of performances includes the Arthur Brandon Humanities Lecture series at Alderson-Broaddus College, the Rhythm and Rhyme series at Kanawha County Public Library, the annual Vandalia Gathering and the Stonewall Jackson Jubilee. Her writing appears in many publications throughout the country. Much of Sherrell’s poetry reflects her love, appreciation and connection to nature, people and the cultural heritage of West Virginia.

ADVANCE PRAISE:

Porch Poems is a collection of multiple voices writing from the same, beloved place with keen descriptions, humor, and blessings. The four poets—Denise, Holstein, Judd, and Wigal—are each importantly engaged with the natural world around them. There are many birds, rivers, skies, and storms in these poems, and also objects from the human world—rusty spoons, wooden rockers, and stopped clocks. Porch Poems offers many surprises and leaves us with the rare good feeling of a small community making art together where “the spirit rises from everything.”

—Maggie Anderson, two-time NEA Fellowship recipient and founder
and editor of the Wick Poetry First Book Series and the Wick Poetry Chapbook Series.

Porch Poems is an ars poetica that invokes the great tradition of “porch sitting,” in which we are invited to sit with four of West Virginia’s best known and most beloved poets. These are poems that last, full of the natural world, made especially for those moments when time slows to a stop. These poets are the keepers of mysteries and wonder, and their poems burn with imagination as they move with ease between the borders of the past and future.

—Renée K. Nicholson, Director, WVU Humanities Center
author of Roundabout Directions to Lincoln Center and Fierce and Delicate

Some of my cherished memories are of my family sitting on porches and in breezeways to talk about all kinds of things—how the garden was coming along, how the neighbor was handling some new scandal or tragedy, how quickly we kids were growing. Sometimes, some of the family would drag out their mandolins, fiddles, and banjos and play bluegrass music. The poems in this book remind me of those times. These writers get at the heart of what it means to be blessed with the stories and experiences of life in West Virginia. These poems are the tangled strands of “DNA” that make up every rural, suburban, and urban dweller in the state. While reading these verses, I could hear every bird, feel every breeze, and smell every aroma swept over the hills and streams of my childhood home. When I let these words wash over me, I feel as though time is standing still, giving me a chance to wonder at the profound and striking moments offered in these pages.

—David B. Prather, author of We Were Birds

“The Spirit Rising from Everything” (Judd) is here in Porch Poems, from Wigal’s childhood of scarcity to her at-oneness with nature: forsythia shouting “yellow hallelujahs,” “twice-fallen rain” dripping from leaves; from Holstein’s struggling humans, their needs, their uneasy alliances with nature and animals, with the living and the dead; from Denise’s tumult, gassing it down the QEW away from memories of the past to a new life, reconsidering everything; from Judd’s love of the world, of family and friends, from his loyalty, saying while a storm brews, “I could not/not come with you.” Readers, enjoy!

—Sandy Vrana, Professor of Literature and Writing (retired)
Alderson Broaddus University