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Hill Daughter: New and Selected Poems
Introduction by Maggie Anderson
Musically complex and intellectually sophisticated, Louise McNeill’s imagery and rhythms have their deepest sources in the West Virginia mountains where she was born in 1911 on a farm that has been in her family for nine generations. These are rooted poems, passionately concerned with stewardship of the land and with the various destructions of land and people that often come masked as “progress.”
In colloquial, rural, and sometimes macabre imagery, Louise McNeill documents the effects of the change from a farm to an industrial economy on the West Virginia mountain people. She writes of the earliest white settlements on the western side of the Alleghenies and of the people who remained there through the coming of the roads, the timber and coal industries, and the several wars of this century.
The reappearance of Louise McNeill’s long out-of-print poems will be cause for celebration for readers familiar with her work. Those reading it for the first time will discover musical, serious, idiosyncratic, and startling poems that define the Appalachian experience.
Musically complex and intellectually sophisticated, Louise McNeill’s imagery and rhythms have their deepest sources in the West Virginia mountains where she was born in 1911 on a farm that has been in her family for nine generations. These are rooted poems, passionately concerned with stewardship of the land and with the various destructions of land and people that often come masked as “progress.”
In colloquial, rural, and sometimes macabre imagery, Louise McNeill documents the effects of the change from a farm to an industrial economy on the West Virginia mountain people. She writes of the earliest white settlements on the western side of the Alleghenies and of the people who remained there through the coming of the roads, the timber and coal industries, and the several wars of this century.
The reappearance of Louise McNeill’s long out-of-print poems will be cause for celebration for readers familiar with her work. Those reading it for the first time will discover musical, serious, idiosyncratic, and startling poems that define the Appalachian experience.
- GenresPoetry
140 pages, Paperback
First published September 10, 1991
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 6, 2026
fifty two book club challenge 2026: read a book you started on the 26th of the month
December 31, 2018
A superb introduction by Maggie Anderson beautifully frames this lyrical collection of Appalachian portraits and landscapes.
Favorite poems:
“Lullaby”
Favorite poems:
“Lullaby”
February 5, 2014
My rating my be a little skewed, as I'm not a real fan of poetry. Overall though, there were quite a few in this selection that I enjoyed. I definitely will check out her memoir as I think I like her as an author.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews