What Travels With Us: Poems

by Darnell Arnoult

With a storyteller's timing and the emotional range of a singer, Darnell Arnoult in her debut collection offers readers a stirring string of poems about the people of Fieldale, Virginia. A planned community founded in the Virginia foothills by Marshall Fields in the early 1900s to support his textile mill, Fieldale was populated by transplanted Appalachian mountain folk. Arnoult herself grew up there, a third-generation resident and among the first generation to go to college. She took away with her the oral history of her home, and in What Travels With Us she captures in poetic form the townspeople's voices, both remembered and imagined. Personal, poignant, and witty, Arnoult's poems look back as they move forward, demonstrating how we are always creating ourselves anew from the experiences we carry with us.

Genres: Poetry

72 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2005

About the author

Darnell Arnoult is author of the novel Sufficient Grace (Simon & Schuster, Inc.), which received a starred review in PW, poetry collections What TravelsWith Us: Poems and  Galaxie Wagon (LSU Press), and most recently Incantations (Madville Publishing).  Arnoult is the recipient of the SIBA Poetry Book of the Year Prize, Weatherford Award, Thomas and Lillie D. Chaffin Award, and the Mary Frances Hobson Award in Artsand Letters. She is founder of WordWell, a constellation of services for writers. She lives with her family in Mebane, NC. For more about Darnell, visit darnellarnoult.net.

Reviews

[Granny · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had the pleasure of meeting Darnell Arnoult and hearing her read her poetry. Delightful writer and most enjoyable book!