Poverty Creek Anthology: An Appalachian Memoir in Haiku

Book excerpt: Poverty Creek flows through national forest in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, skirting the edge of rural farms and residences before flowing into another creek and eventually joining the New River. More importantly, it symbolizes living on the edge of poverty, and occasionally wading in, which remains a part of the Appalachian experience. Like its namesake, this collection of three-line poems meanders through Virginia's small towns, back roads, college campus bustle, and rural isolation to reveal the beauty and pain of nature and humans intersecting. Part personal experience, part observation, these haiku capture Americana and a spectrum of emotions in small moments, season by season.