Appalachian Newground

Appalachian Newground is Lee Pennington's twentieth book and the first book he has published after a 23-year hiatus. His books of poetry, essays and short stories have won two nominations for Pulitzer Prizes, earned him the title of Poet Laureate of Kentucky in 1984, and the prices of his former titles have "gone through the roof," as they have been small editions and have never been reprinted. In this book, as he did in his former publications, Lee Pennington addresses the world of nature and spirit in a unique way, born in him and nurtured by his Eastern Kentucky birthplace among the hills and "hollers" of a mountainside farm. With no running water or electricity, he found the beauty and wisdom of his environment inspiring him to write poems on birch bark and leaves before finally publishing books on paper. His close friend, Jesse Stuart, was his best critic and inspiration throughout the years of Jesse's life. Pennington's 39 years of teaching Creative Writing in colleges brought him not only masterful skill, but thousands of adoring students, many of whom have become well-known writers themselves. In this volume you will find the distillation of Pennington's creative genius in his poems in their quiet, passionate intensity, as well as a treatise on his childhood and a screenplay contemplating the past, present and future as seen by humanity and all-pervasive nature in the form of "Ragweed."

Humor & Entertainment

Pennington, Lee

Movies

Winchester Cottage Print

This is a personal spiritual journey through love with dramatic encounters with "the Holy." It is a man's story. It also makes short reflective arguments with the languages of psychotherapy and religion saying instead that love is a sacred place, protected by the Feminine, and has a language of its own.

Desperately Seeking Mary

Religion & Spirituality

Newcomer, Duncan D.

Christian Books & Bibles

Lee Pennington was born and grew to manhood in Appalachia in a small hillside community called "White Oak" located in western end of Greenup County, Kentucky. He attended the same one room school his parents attended. Later he went to McKell High School where he met and became close friends with the writer Jesse Stuart. The author of 19 other books, Pennington was twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for his I Knew a Woman and Thigmotropism. He was named Poetry Laureate of Kentucky by the State Legislature in 1984. He says, "Appalachian Newground is, in some small way, my recognizing and honoring the land of my birth." Appalachian Newground is his first book in 23 years.

Literature & Fiction

Short Stories & Anthologies

In the 1960's, after graduation from Berea, Lee Pennington went to Harlan County to teach poetry to Kentucky Community College students. Under his tutelage, they published four books of poetry, Spirit Hollow, Thirteen, The Long Way Home and Tomorrow's People. It was this last book that got him in trouble, as the students were honest and frank about their locale, religion and relationships, and local authorities took offense. So much so that a price was put on Pennington's head and he had to leave with armed guards to protect him. This, of course, made national news and he was asked to speak all over the United States. 
It was not the students or the population of Harlan County who hated Pennington, but the establishment, the executives, the law-enforcers and managers who disapproved of his freedom and honesty. As Jean W. Ross writes in the DLB Yearbook, "the students' work was in part critical of strip-mining, traditional religious teaching, and the hypocrisy of authority." She writes of Lee's subsequent book on the subject, 
Songs of Bloody Harlan, , published first in North American Mentor (Summer 1971), and in book form in 1975, is Pennington's toughly realistic but ultimately loving tribute to the region that had driven him out in 1967. He wrote of the poetry's genesis, "For two years following my experience in Harlan County, I didn't say anything. But a poet doesn't have that choice either. . . . Songs of Bloody Harlan is my comment." (Jean W. Ross, Dictionary of Literary Biography Yearbook 1982, p. 335) 
Pennington's book, Songs of Bloody Harlan was one of his early publications, with a small edition of 100 printed, in 1975. Its popularity grew until it became very valuable, with a high price of $2,500 listed for one available on Amazon in 2018. This edition fulfills many people's desire to own a copy of this rare book, and it deserves reprinting so that all may partake of the experience Pennington lived, with all of it beauty, love and agony.

Songs of Bloody Harlan

Poetry

Lee Pennington has published 20 books, most of them poetry, as he is a Poet Laureate of Kentucky. This new book, with new poems written since 2011, is filled with the wonder of love and admiration for his lover. His words shine with light and drip with eroticism. The illustrations by Jill Baker bring out the visual in his words, adding to and complementing the overall intimacy of this small treasure of a book.

Daughters of Leda

Arts & Photography

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Books by Winchester Cottage Print

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Appalachian Newground

Desperately Seeking Mary

Appalachian Newground

Songs of Bloody Harlan

Daughters of Leda