The Logan Topographies

by Alena Hairston

A unique collection that delves deep into the consciousness of a West Virginian coal mining community.
This extraordinary debut is an inhabiting of the town of Logan, West Virginia. In four gorgeous lyric sequences, Alena Hairston conducts the voices of this population of miners and their kin, poignantly rendering their destitution, their heartbreak, and their incongruous strength and spirit. Winner of Persea's inaugural Lexi Rudnitsky Poetry Prize, a first-book award for American women poets.

Genres: Poetry

57 pages, Paperback

First published April 18, 2007

Reviews

[Tonya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Home - from a different point of view. Highly recommended - especially for those from deep Appalachia.

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Who might touch me in tenderness not stone?
These journeys long; any love is rough hewn.

- A brailed believer, walking

The Logan Topographies is divided into four parts: "22 Mountains", "Devil's Tea Table", "The Hill", and "The Bottom"...

from "22 Mountains"...

PREGNANT BELLY OF CONEFLOWER and larkspur, coalcaves of lupine and barberry.
where shale grows up and bumps into sun. breathes across the moon.
lunar party dream of history striated.

people find here. people found here. people lose here. people lost here.
people hunt here. people hunted here. people trap here. people trapped here.
people live here. people lived here. people sing here. people sand here.
people take here. people taken here. people come here. people left here.
people return here. people stay here. people gone?

at its base a labyrinth of rivers spilling sedge and cattail into an island creek,
beholden and cut for use.

sentry and citadel, flying.

- pg. 3

*

SHE WAS TO GIVE birth to a child who would not maintain her skin, this one-eyed
woman hunched in hemlock, churning earth, looking for her other sight
her poppa snatched away, threw into the galaxy of forest, dared
her to find it in the matching peat and wet, this rifle
eating her breast.

The day you can hear her only after midnight and only with your ears


to the ground.

- pg. 8

from "Devil's Tea Table"...

EDGES IN THE RHODODENDRON. There is not always enough cloud or fog.

When the Mingo knew only themselves, the sky was not a frontier.

Though coal was sacred, it was made for use.

Before any table, there was prayer about this "curious" land.

What they knew.


And then the taking and the losing.
The taking and the losing.


The devil at a table. What is seen is not territory. Is home.

- pg. 17

*

DAUGHTERS OF FOUR GENERATIONS of undines
honey and maple bodies of branches anticipating warmer weather
in a world not wanting them
because boys have souls already and promise more dollars
the rites of browngirls can go unpublished (remember their flowers untrained)
but they swim the fish and seawater between them
because boys are a cold place
and when one says "i feel you passing through me"
the choir to stay or leave is one
either is flight

- pg. 26

from "The Hill"...

THERE ARE CONTESTS, GENERATIONAL. One, the funny coloured eyes: hazel, gold, gray, ice.
Another, the various skin: cashew, almond, milk. Always, the hair:
only one way to win: straight. The DeBarnes win every time, with every child,
everyone else swears they are inbreeding. They get their access roads paved
and, depending on the season, only.

- pg. 33

*

THEY OWN DANGEROUS SAFE houses. Places of furniture, matching drapes and carpet, wood
too heavy for showrooms. Welcomes are dependent on status, given and earned,
and the fabric and cut of suits. Shoes, too, thick-soled and shiny.

Generations of owners, of hybrid skin, and plans to keep.
There had been protest but the loneliness of wind was louder and now stays.
The loneliness of a house on its own hill, the dare of it, like a red hat
on a sable girl,
in church.

- pg.

from "The Bottom"...

THEY WERE BUSILY BEING owned therefore there are no pets
Rural spit
Mortgage paid in bone
Alzheimer families boarded up, stacked, and roaming
Census tract detour
Birds chirp at the wrong hour
Head State far away
Newspaper headlines usually misspelled
They do not read but are read
Where there is dirt there was garden

- pg. 45

*

A WOMAN: FORMERLY KNOWN as Coca Col on account of her shape
then when sex slanted and shaded her eyes; the skin butter; the lashes butterflied
And legs for days: the men stuttered; the women stared, rival mouths
scowled.

Just Candy now. That good shit in her nose and arms;
eyes now slanted in chemical glee; legs smooth and wrong:
see her tapping at a glassless window.

- pg. 49

[Sarah KKKKKKKK irnon · Rating 5 out of 5]

i do not know much of the history of the West virginian mining industry. But in reading the pages of this beautifully put together work of art, i can feel and imagine and understand the souls of this underground .....