| "The Well String is a significant contribution to Appalachian literature." --Ron Rash |
| fiction non-fiction memoir poetry |
| ISBN 978-1-934894-01-9 |
| Narrative Poetry 140 pages |
PRAISE for The Well String ...
excellent collection of poems. The Appalachian voices Noel Smith creates are utterly convincing, and their stories allow the reader to feel as well as see the world she has brought alive. The Well String is a significant contribution to Appalachian Literature." – RON RASH author of Saints At The River, The World Made Straight and Chemistry and Other Stories "Noel Smith’s extraordinary poems light up the dusky past – bringing people and their times to startling life. I will never forget, for instance, the image of those boys and their father on their raft of logs, unexpectedly viewing the Northern Lights: “... the sky blanketed with flaming lights all colors and then some. It stays floodlit as though Jesus were coming down then and there. ...in any case the world is coming to an end.” This book is written in plain precise speech, highly charged with intensity and originality, yet oddly familiar somehow, as if it has actually happened to us. These poems grab at the heart of life." – LEE SMITH author of On Agate Hill, The Last Girls and Fair and Tender Ladies "Noel Smith’s poems can sound both rough-hewn and gentle. Their words have the feel of a long-used rocking chair in which sat a teller of stories whose language harks back to the beginning of all stories, like mountain springs bursting out of rocky ground. The lines in 'Hard Passage,' for example, are wielded like the rigging and warping that fashion the destinies of the poem’s characters, as well as the coffin in which Mama is 'gently set,' an iron deathbed, yes, but one with 'curlicues/so brightly white.' Years ago at Hindman Settlement School, Noel Smith’s first poems struck me with their verbal power. This first collection gathers their strong voices together for all of us." – KATHRYN STRIPLING BYER author of Wildwood Flower, Black Shawl and Coming to Rest "There’s powerful music in Noel Smith’s The Well String. Work is the key and nature is the rhythm in this song cycle sung down generations of an Appalachian family. Whether it’s the saw that Papa and Sam wield in the logwoods ('back, forth, prance, stomp'), or the fiddle from which Sam drinks 'the wine colored note as it hums/ Straight to his blood,' or the love-tight string of the title poem, the tools these folks take up come alive. We are richer for the wisdom and muscle of their voices. 'Hard, honey, hard,' Nellie tells us. 'I have gone through so much/ that I can take ahold/ of anything that comes along.'” – GEORGE ELLA LYON author of Don’t You Remember? (A Memoir) and With a Hammer for My Heart |
ABOUT THE AUTHOR ... Noel Smith was born and raised in New York City. After graduating from Wellesley College she became a social worker under Mary Breckinridge at the Frontier Nursing Service in Hyden, a community in Leslie County in eastern Kentucky. Now retired from teaching in elementary school, she spends as much time as she can visiting in eastern Kentucky. She lives in New York’s Hudson Valley. Her late husband, Peter Fernandez, was a writer, director and actor best known for the Speed Racer animated series. |
| OTHER WRITING BY NOEL SMITH ... online anthology Enskyment and online journals Poems Niederngasse and Innisfree. Journal appearances include New Letters, Shenandoah, Poet Lore, West Branch, Appalachian Heritage, Appalalachian Journal, Blueline, Dos Passos Review, Iron Horse and others. An earlier version of this manuscript was a finalist for the Tupelo Press First Book Award. “Early April” was selected by Donald Hall for the Yankee Magazine Prize. She received two Denny C. Plattner honorable mentions from Appalachian Heritage for “Chairmaker” and “Floodtime Festival,” a second prize from Byline magazine for “The Coal Speculator,” and the Henry V. Larom Award from SUNY Rockland for “Sudden Speech.” She has been nominated three times for a Pushcart Prize. |
In an Appalachia both dark and light, a place
described by poet Noel Smith as “this soft
country of tough harvests,” the reader comes
to know a cast of vivid characters. THE WELL
STRING is not only a poetry collection, but a
novel in poems — focusing on one fictional
family over a span of more than 100 years.
Novelist Silas House, in the book's foreword,
calls THE WELL STRING "a journey of
wonders," "a powerful book," and "a gift."
He calls the book "not so much a poetry
collection as a novel in poems." House adds,
"Many of the characters in THE WELL STRING
are so haunting that we might never forget
them," noting that Smith also "captures the
natural world, which she knows has 'always
the song of the Redbird, like a silver drop.'"
Novelist Lee Smith describes THE WELL
STRING as "highly charged with intensity and
originality, yet oddly familiar somehow, as if it
has actually happened to us."
Poet and novelist Ron Rash calls the book
"vividly rendered ... excellent" and "utterly
convincing," concluding that
"THE WELL STRING is a
significant contribution to
Appalachian Literature."
described by poet Noel Smith as “this soft
country of tough harvests,” the reader comes
to know a cast of vivid characters. THE WELL
STRING is not only a poetry collection, but a
novel in poems — focusing on one fictional
family over a span of more than 100 years.
Novelist Silas House, in the book's foreword,
calls THE WELL STRING "a journey of
wonders," "a powerful book," and "a gift."
He calls the book "not so much a poetry
collection as a novel in poems." House adds,
"Many of the characters in THE WELL STRING
are so haunting that we might never forget
them," noting that Smith also "captures the
natural world, which she knows has 'always
the song of the Redbird, like a silver drop.'"
Novelist Lee Smith describes THE WELL
STRING as "highly charged with intensity and
originality, yet oddly familiar somehow, as if it
has actually happened to us."
Poet and novelist Ron Rash calls the book
"vividly rendered ... excellent" and "utterly
convincing," concluding that
"THE WELL STRING is a
significant contribution to
Appalachian Literature."
"... not so much a poetry collection as a novel in poems." --Silas House |
| The Well String |
| The Well String |
(c) 2012
Links to other online publications by Noel Smith: Poems Neiderngasse Archive-issue #79 Mar-Apr. 2006 www.niederngasse.com Innisfree Poetry Journal Innisfree 5 - Sept. 2007 www.innisfreepoetry.org www.enskyment.org |
| Click leaf to sample Noel Smith's photographs of Appalachia |
| CLICK HERE to read excerpts from THE WELL STRING |
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