Dirt Songs

by Kari Gunter-Seymour

In her third full-length collection, Dirt Songs, Kari Gunter-Seymour's poems are full-throated, raw, deceptively simple, and rippling with candor, providing readers an insider's lens into the larger questions surrounding the many aspects of Appalachian culture, including identity, the impact of poverty, generational afflictions, and the brunt of mainstream America's skewed regard for the region. Readers will discover a musicality of language, a stoic sense of honor, a richly detailed tapestry of experiences, and an inspiring display of humility and courage. Throughout the book there is an overarching determination to endure, to be the last truth teller left standing, arm raised in solidarity with the land and its people. Dirt Songs does what journalists and mainstream media have failed to provide a uniquely intimate look at landscape and family generated from within Appalachia, recognizing that one story cannot accurately represent a region or its people.

Genres: Poetry

88 pages, Paperback

Published February 6, 2024

About the author

ALONE IN THE HOUSE OF MY HEART (Ohio University Swallow Press 2022)

“A breathtaking, artful set of poems on loss, family, place, and memory.”
--Kirkus (Starred review)

“We reckon that nine generations in Appalachia is long enough for a place to get in the bones of a family, and that kinheritance has marked Kari Gunter-Seymour with an intuitive feel for one of America’s most isolated and peculiar regions.”
--Matt Sutherland, Foreword Reviews

“Kari Gunter-Seymour’s talent shines like a diamond in this collection: solid, clear, sparkling.”
--Donna Meredith, Southern Literary Review

Deeply rooted in respect and compassion for Appalachia and its people, the poems included in "Alone in the House of My Heart" are both paeans to and dirges for past and present family, farmlands, factories, and coal. The collection resounds with candid, lyrical poems about Appalachia’s social and geographical afflictions and affirmations. History, culture, and community shape the physical and personal landscapes of Gunter-Seymour’s native southeastern Ohio soil, scarred by Big Coal and fracking, while food insecurity and Big Pharma leave their marks on the region’s people. A musicality of language swaddles each poem in hope and a determination to endure. Alone in the House of My Heart offers what only art can: a series of thought-provoking images that evoke such a clear sense of place that it’s familiar to anyone, regardless of where they call home.

Gunter-Seymour is the Poet Laureate of Ohio, a ninth generation Appalachian and editor of "I Thought I Heard A Cardinal Sing: Ohio's Appalachian Voices, a one-of-a-kind anthology, funded by the Academy of American Poets and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Gunter-Seymour is the executive director and editor of the Women of Appalachia Project™ anthologies, "Women Speak," volumes 1-8 and "Essentially Athens Ohio," an anthology focused on landmarks, tales and experiences of those living in or deeply connected to Athens county. She holds a B.F.A. in graphic design and an M.A. in commercial photography and is a retired instructor in the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University. A poem she wrote in support of families living in poverty in Athens County, OH, went viral and has been seen by over 100,000 people, resulting in thousands of dollars donated to her local food pantry.

Her poetry collections include "Alone in the House of My Heart" (Ohio University Swallow Press, 2022), "A Place So Deep Inside America It Can’t Be Seen" (Sheila Na Gig Editions, 2020), winner of the 2020 Ohio Poet of the Year Award and the chapbook "Serving" (Crisis Chronicals Press 2020). Her work has been featured on Verse Daily, Cultural Daily, World Literature Today, the New York Times and Poem-a-Day.

Gunter-Seymour is an Ohio Creative Aging Teaching Artist; a retired instructor in the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University; an artist in residence at the Wexner Center for the Arts and a Pillars of Prosperity Fellow for the Foundation for Appalachian Ohio.

Her award winning photography has been published nationally in The Sun Magazine, Light Journal, Looking at Appalachia, Storm Cellar Quarterly, Anthology of Appalachian Writers, Vine Leaves Journal and Appalachian Heritage Magazine.

www.karigunterseymourpoet.com

Reviews

[Herbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

These poems are rooted in embodied experience. They are rarely concerned with concepts - rather than get bigger, the turn in these poems is usually toward what is smaller. A broken relationship is contained in a song and a glance at a baby. A cremated person becomes a charred hip that won't break down into ash. The narrator prays to be reincarnated as a string bean, envisions herself a morning glory, her time "so brief... in the sun."

These poems very specifically originate from an Appalachian working-class woman's experience.

I agree - (with the Goodreads blurb for this book) - they are deceptively simple. I never dropped my jaw to the floor or felt like I was seeing something I had never seen before, but I never stopped wanting to keep reading.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another wonderful collection of poems by Kari Gunter-Seymour, Ohio Poet Laureate. I'm really looking forward to her presentation to the Aldus Society here in Columbus later this month (May 22, free and open to the public, program starts at 7:30 pm @ Thurber Center), where I hope to get her to sign my copy. Meanwhile, here's the epigraph to Part one of the book, which I love:

"We wash into this world, a pair of raised eyebrows,
delivered from one floating world to another."

Some of the poems in this book deal with the grittier stuff in life, and some are more celebratory, but they all have the author's big heart, keen intelligence, and wonderful way with words.

[Erin Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kari Gunter-Seymour, who served 6 years as Poet Laureate of Ohio, is a 9th generation Appalachian which she captures so eloquently in her poem “Because My Ancestors":

…my people, crossing a cratered land,
a pregnant woman, lanky and twanged,
a thick muscled man, farsighted,
timbered the land, planted seeds,
prayed for rain, the soil so rich,
so ripe with possibility.

But you don’t need to be from Appalachia to appreciate the hard truths and hard-earned beauty in this remarkable collection.

[Joyy · Rating 5 out of 5]

My introduction to our poet laureate! I appreciate how her poems seem to stick in my thoughts even after I put down the book.

Favorites from this collection:
Because My Ancestors
Where We Come from Can Break Us
Hit Me Baby One More Time
Mysterious Ways
Spring in the Hollow
Granny Medicine
Serving
Legitimate Cockamamie

[CJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dirt Songs will dig up your heart, lovingly tease out the roots, divide and replant the shoots in rich, warm soil...what a beautiful garden Kari Gunter-Seymour's poems grow.

[Nancy Jentsch · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'd give it 10 stars if I could!!

[Jess]

Some stuff that spoke to my midwestern soul.

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

100/10

[Heather Dent · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gritty, vivid, and moving. Kari will tug at your heartstrings, connecting on an intimate level with her vulnerability and ability to capture the minute details of day to day life.