Eureka Mill

by Ron Rash

The Asheville Citizen-Times "Every now and then a book comes along that transports us so thoroughly to another time and another way of life that, when we finally put it down, our own lives don't quite look the same. It is even more remarkable if the book is set where we live, a place we thought we'd been." These poems make up a dramatic and lyrical portrait of the migration of poor Buncombe County farmers to a mill village outside Chester, S.C. However, the book is much more than documentary. Rash, whose grandparents and parents worked in the Eureka Mill interweaves his family's personal history with the broader texture of mill life, giving us at once intimacy and perspective, heart and understanding.

Genres: Poetry, Southern, Literary Fiction

64 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Ron Rash is the author of the 2009 PEN/Faulkner Finalist and New York Times bestselling novel, Serena, in addition to three other prizewinning novels, One Foot in Eden, Saints at the River, and The World Made Straight; three collections of poems; and four collections of stories, among them Burning Bright, which won the 2010 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, and Chemistry and Other Stories, which was a finalist for the 2007 PEN/Faulkner Award. Twice the recipient of the O.Henry Prize, he teaches at Western Carolina University.

Reviews

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is quite a lengthy forward preceeding these poems. A very informative forward chronicling how Mills and mill towns came to the South, leaving their farms where they were at the mercy of so many things out of their control. Those in the Appalachian mountains came down for the steady pay. Life was not easy, the job hard, child labor prevalent, disease rampant. The onslaught of Unions, and Ella Mae Wiggins is mentioned, a fictional book I read earlier in the year featured her story. Ron Rashes mother is featured in the poem, July 1949, who left her farm to work in a cotton mill.

Only recently did I become aware that Rash, whose books I loved, wrote poetry. This short book of porms, likened to Spoon River Anthology, in that the characters tell their own story. Through them, and the many different types of poems within, we get a picture of life on the farm and in the mill. Some are harrowing, some desperate, some sad, but some are joyful, all quite expressive and well done.

ARC from Edelweiss.

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

This thematic poetry volume from Ron Rash, a well-regarded writer of Appalachian fiction, honors the Chester County, South Carolina mill where his family worked to provide steady income when farm income depended on varying factors. In the poems farm life and mill life and the contrasts between them are seen. We see many of the problems associated with mills, such as child labor, unpaid medical leave, and germ spread. (During this time of COVID-19 where food production plants seem to be hot-beds for spreading the virus, it appears managers learned little from the past.) I picked this up when I vacationed in the Outer Banks. I sought a volume of Outer Banks poetry, but after reading a few lines in the only volume available, I began looking for a North Carolina author instead. I picked up Rash's volume, not realizing at the time the South Carolina setting. I'm glad I picked it up. I truly enjoyed the poems which shared a common theme. (4.5 stars)

[Larry Bassett · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first poetry book by Ron Rash and was published in 1998. Eureka Mill is in north central South Carolina in Chester County, the birthplace of the author. The textile industry in the southeastern U.S. has achieved a good deal of notoriety for its working conditions and unionization efforts. It is an industry that thrived in the early and mid twentieth century, brought the scourge of brown lung disease and has essentially vanished into the international marketplace.

In an essay titled Ghostly Bodies and Worker Voices: Power and Resistance in Ron Rash’s Eureka Mill Randall Wilhelm writes

In Eureka Mill, themes of power, identity, and resistance intertwine and are woven into the very fabric of the language and forms themselves. Through Rash’s use of dramatic monologues and intricate sound patterns, he gives voice to the frustrations, confusions, and anxieties Southern millhands felt in response to their new spatial and economic identities in the mill system of the Piedmont.
…
In story after story, poem after poem, Rash shows his sympathy for the historically silenced mountain folk, the blood kin from whom he springs, the ghosts who people his own “spirit world” with glittering intensity. Eureka Mill is Rash’s most overtly political book, and while the poems obviously evoke sympathy for the millworkers and their plight, Rash is certainly not in lock step with a leftist agenda and offers no easy answers for the complexities of the mill enterprise.
Source: http://www.clemson.edu/cedp/cudp/scr/...

Eureka Mill is a short novel in verse telling the story of the change from subsistence farming to life in the town working at the textile mill with the machinery powered by the flow of the Appalachian rivers and the labor of entire families. As is often the case with poetry, there is an economy of words with the story told in sixty-two pages.

[Rob · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my first book of poetry by Ron Rash, and it was as good if not better than his novels and short stories. I continue to be amazed at his understanding of the southern culture and its people. His writing is so easy to read and so true that he really speaks to the heart of every southerner. These poems are about the mill towns of the south and the people who lived there and gave their lives to those towns. He writes about the fields of the south where these people originally came from in the early 1900s, seeking the promise of a better life than the fields could offer. But even in the mill villages, the fields never really left their hearts and minds. Even today, the fields and the mills are still a part of who we are, whether we grew up in them ourselves or not. Every southerner from southern families comes from one or both of these traditions. The culture of the fields and mills has influenced our thinking, our living, and so much more.

I like Ron Rash because he writes about a way of life that is familiar and comfortable to me. He writes from his experiences and the history of his own family and culture. While I'm not the product of the fields or the mills myself, I can see the influences of this culture in the history of my own family and therefore, in my own upbringing. The history Rash writes about is my history because it has impacted my life, my thinking, whether I realize it on a conscious level or not. While Rash does not tell my story in his writings, his stories help me to better understand the people that I come from and the place that I grew up and still call home today.

I love the personal connection that Rash shares in his poetry. He writes so that I feel I'm there, hearing the stories and the jokes, meeting the people, watching the scenes play out in my mind's eye. He writes so vividly yet uses language that I understand. He is southern, and I really like that. His poetry makes me think and smile and laugh. I will continue to read more and more of his books.

[J. Robin Whitley · Rating 3 out of 5]

My grandparents were millworkers. I liked these poems for the memories they brought me of my grandparents in the mill. Rash's poems show a harshness that was worse than what I heard from my folks though.

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably destined to be a core reading in Appalachian studies. Lyrical and voiced from the perspective of mill workers. Rash also introduces his blend of Welsh inspired sounds and 9-syllable form. To my taste the whole is stronger than the parts. Bookmarked just three poems: "Preparing the Body," "The Stretch-Out," and "Plane Crash."

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been updating my knowledge of American poets. I've loved Rash's short fiction since 2005, when a story of his appeared in a O. Henry anthology, alongside one by an old teacher. Many US short story writers fancy themselves poets, often with little to justify it. Rash does, and this remains my favourite among his published poetry. Clear, simple-seeming, and he has a strong subject - his gaze goes outwards. I hope Canongate (his UK publisher) bring out a Selected Poems soon.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ron Rash is one of my favorite authors for fiction, so to find a book of his poems that I found interesting, eloquent and fulfilling was a real treat. I released it at a Piccolo Spoleto Event Poetry and Parties in the Roaring 20's.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think the power in this book comes from taking all the poems together as a narrative. Individually, the poems are pretty good, and a couple a really great. I like Rash's imagery, and I think he does a good job bringing mill life to the page, but some of the poems fall a little flat and/or lack punch.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ron Rash's poetry is very similar to his prose. The overall writing is enjoyable and the stories poignant. Although technique/style is almost great, it was more prose than poetry in my opinion. Definitely worth reading as he is one of the great modern writing masters.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

A stunning collection of poems written in the voices of the people working in the Eureka cotton mill from 1900 to 1950.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great collection of poems and insight into the lives of the people who worked in the mills.

[Carolyn (in SC) C234D · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book of poems a few years ago and was very affected by it. Beautifully written and powerful.

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story of a Carolina mill town, told in poetry. Beautifully written but sad.

[Tracey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read books by Ron Rash but this is my first book of poetry. It was a fantastic read-really capturing the desperation of poverty and mill life. I will read more by this author.

[Lorraine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rash's beautiful and thoughtful prose provide a unique glimpse of a town built around a textile mill

[Michael Wiggins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eureka Mill by Ron Rash is a short, profound book. I found many truths on its pages, and I learned much of Rash's family history and roots while I read it. I also found several points I found myself disagreeing with, or at least with which I took issue, and it is hard for me to say why, but I will try.

Eureka Mill is a collection of poems about how a small flood of poor mountain farmers, many from western North Carolina or the Piedmont, who ended up trading their mountain homes and dreams for a steady paycheck and hope for a more stable, better life. Rash's family, and half of mine, for that matter, took that chance of leaving their farms or land holding for mill life. I believe that Rash finds much evil or at least misfortune in those decisions, and certainly he sees the mill owners who profit from this labor as exploitive and harsh.

Perhaps they were, in many ways. My own people didn't come down and work at Eureka; they came down and worked at Clifton Mills (not that far from where I now live) and Buffalo Mills after the Pacolet River flood of 1903. One was my Great-Granny Conner, who came down from Ela in Swain County, NC with at least some of her family. She was still a child in 1903, and left the destroyed mill at Clifton to go on to Buffalo. Somehow, her family returned to the mountains. I never found out how. She spent the last of her days just over the mountain from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, in a little three room cabin with one of her sons and all the company she could handle. In the end, she couldn't remember my name, but she could remember the words to a song about working in Buffalo as a young lady.

Rash mentions the unfortunate turns of fate that led some of his kin to leave their farms: rising taxes, fencing in land making grazing and hunting more difficult, turning to tobacco as a savior crop the same time as everyone else. Finally, he speaks of taking out loans, and being unable to pay them back. It seems there were plenty of bad guys to go around.

I really love Rash's writing, and one of the reasons why is because he knows people just like mine, and understands them. He has a deep appreciation for the lives and the small and great decisions that create those lives. Eureka Mill is a great piece of writing, and I'm not really criticizing his point of view. I'm saying that it is just one way of looking at those men and women who took that chance to come out of the mountains, and just one way of looking at those owners and managers who also took a chance during a mammoth upheaval of Southern life, economy and society.

Just a note: I read this book at a Vigil fire I kept on Halloween Night, 2020. I stayed up all night with Ron Rash's ghosts, and with more than a few of mine. I forgot to mention that the other half of my family stayed in the mountains, farming, working as a farrier, moonshining, and logging. It was a hard life for them, I have no doubt. But the land they retained, and the storied lives they led, are rich indeed. They too were brave who stayed put even when times looked desperate.

[Sally · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read small parts of this poetry book for a class in college and I wanted to finally read it in its entirety. These poems so powerfully portray the hardships, happiness, and horrors of the life of mill workers and their families. Some brought tears to my eyes, some made me smile, and some made me angry. Ron Rash is a beautiful poet and I love having this one on my bookshelf.

[Michael Brantley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a good running story through these poems. Been a fan of Rash’s fiction for a long time, this was my first of his poetry. Enjoyable read.

[Eddie Becker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just excellent poems on the brutality of cotton mills in the early 20th Century. Looking forward to reading more of Ron Rash's work.

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have yet to find a work by Ron Rash I don’t love but his poetry is insane. He brings history alive in a way I can’t describe.

[Zuska · Rating 4 out of 5]

A poignant and gripping book; the collection of poems forms a sort of novella, telling the story of mill life in the Carolina Piedmont in the early 20th century. Exquisite work by Rash.