Award-winning Appalachian poet, memoirist, and teacher Pauletta Hansel reads from her latest book of poetry-Will There Also Be Singing?
Cheri Lawson attended the poetry reading in Northern Kentucky and sat down for a conversation with the poet.
It’s a Thursday evening in a northern Kentucky bookstore. Appalachian writer and poet Pauletta Hansel captures the attention of a room full of people as she reads from her latest book, Will There Also Be Singing? She begins with a poem called Aerial View of Catastrophic Flooding in Eastern Kentucky. She said it was taken from Facebook posts of flood survivors, as they lived through the flood in the summer of 2022.
“Quicksand, Bulan, Neon, Hiner, Martin, Fisty. This is our place in Hueysville. This was my mother’s house before she passed. Samanatha’s sister’s house is by that blue bridge. Anyone know anything about Fugate’s Fork Road?” reads Hansel.
Hansel was born in Richmond, Kentucky, and raised in Breathitt County. Now she lives in Cincinnati and was its first poet laureate. She recalls how she came to write the poem about the eastern Kentucky flood.
“There is an annual Appalachian writer’s workshop in Hindman, Kentucky which I often go to and I did not in 2022. And I was enjoying seeing my friends’ posts on Facebook about their time there and their experience in being with each other and with other writers. And then one morning I woke up and it was very different posts from these friends. Instead of posting about the workshop that they were going to or how much fun they had had the night before, they were posting about trying to evacuate and trying to get out. And as I started reading more about it on social media, I realized that the flooding was happening in all of the places that I lived, all of the places that I loved, affecting many family members and friends who were still there and I felt absolutely frantic,” explained Hansel.
The poet said the first time she read this poem about the flood in public, she cried. She continues reading.
“Nix Branch, Jakes Branch, Trot. If you zoom into where the white car hood is my home is there. Rowdy, Wayland, Noble’s Landing, Cowan Creek. OMG that is Pigeon Roost. Hindman, Buckhorn Chavis, Krypton, Garrett over toward Pound. Y’all this is my hometown,” reads Hansel.
The book has been described as a collection that contains poems of witness and protest. Hansel said there are three sections to this book and the first section is about Appalachia.
“And it primarily draws from news sources to talk about environmental degradation, to talk about workers issues particularly workers in the mines and issues around black lung, to then moves into the flooding and talks about my own experience of being an Appalachian outside of the region,” said Hansel.
Writer, teacher, and former Kentucky poet laureate George Ella Lyon calls Will There Also Be Singing a much-needed book. She uses Hansel’s poem about the 2022 flood as an example.
“We need this chorus of voices that she brings together at a time when people were literally isolated. People were either cut off from their homes or they were isolated in their homes with the water all around. She takes their voices and puts them together in this artful way and then she closes with such a challenge to the reader to do something,” said Lyon.
Again, Hansel reads.
“Your prayers are good but we need to get federal and state assistance ASAP. Don’t cry for Appalachia, work for change however you can. Let’s use the internet to tell our story. Thank you for posting. Much love and many blessings to you all from what’s left,” read Hansel.
Hansel's student Adam Bowman was moved by Hansel's reading.
” Most of her poetry at least that I’ve been exposed to has been inward-focused, rather than outward-focused. So, it was cool to hear her read several directly political poems and the one specifically to the flooding in eastern Kentucky struck me how personal it was to her and the gathering of voices of different people in that situation.”
Bowman said he’s inspired by Hansel’s humility as a poetry teacher. He appreciates hearing her read from her new book.
Pauletta Hansel said the second part of Will There Also Be Singing deals very specifically with race.
“And so it lays side by side the experience of me as a fairly privileged White Appalachian woman in the early part of the 21st century with the experience of an Appalachian African-American man in the early part of the 20th century and I try to grapple with race and with my own privilege," said Hansel.
The 64-year-old Hansel said the latter part of the book deals with the country as a whole and focuses on the 2016 election.
“And you know when you start talking about presidents you’re getting political and I don’t hold back from that. And so, I am happy to have friends and relatives who don’t think like me. But some of these poems will make some people angry. She reads from her poem, America.
“America…. America, I am not singing you beautiful. I do not hear the melody beneath the rolling clang and clatter of your discord. I did not know I loved you, America, even broken as you were until the fist came down. Don’t it always seem to go, you don’t know what you thought you had until the dream of it is gone…. Jolted awake I sing your name..
After hearing her poem America Lawson said she wondered how Hansel was feeling about the upcoming election.
“One of the things that I feel is for many of these poems that were written in 2016 and 17 and 18 is I really wish they weren’t still relevant. Ya know? I wish nobody wanted to read this book. And that Virginia Underwood from Shadelandhouse Modern Press said, sorry Pauletta, it’s just not relevant anymore. But it is, it is,” said Hansel.
Pauletta Hansel is the author of ten poetry collections including this latest collection, Will There Also Be Singing? It was released in April.
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Poet and teacher Pauletta Hansel greets her students at Roebling Books and Coffee in Dayton, Kentucky.
Appalachian poet Pauletta Hansel reads from Will There Also Be Singing?
Writer, teacher, and poet Pauletta Hansel talked about her latest book from her home in Cincinnati.
Poet Pauletta Hansel and Virginia Underwood from Shadelandhouse Modern Press are proud to present Will There Also Be Singing?
