“This is an  important,  beautiful book, and  I can't imagine how American literature has gone so long without it.”
  Silas House

"This collection of poems promises to inspire thought and  conversation about the complicated relationship between coal, society, and culture.”
  Dr. Shaunna Scott

“Although coal is dirty and ugly, this anthology is quite the opposite because it illuminates the way that the human spirit has emerged triumphant in the face of the degradation of the land and people.”
  George Brosi

“As soon as I read the first poems, I felt the power of the words coming from the heart of the nation.”
  Gurney Norman

“From heartbreaking laments to indelible character sketches and inevitably to the powerful shouts of resistance that have so defined mining culture, these poems tell stories at once ancient and terribly up-to-date about the price of ‘progress’ and the cost of labor. “
  Rachel Rubin

“Anyone who loves the poetry of place will find old friends and new in these pages, and will find as well the great Appalachian poets of  the past resurrected.”
  Denise Giardina

“The poems in this collection are true—all of them. They come to us from the deep hollows and coal towns and rivers and the front porches and pool halls and coal mines in authentic and lyrical voices that will not go away.”
  Jack Spadaro

“The combination of work, lost land, pride, and suffering is at the core of the contradictions that animate the region’s culture and the poems in this anthology.”
  Chris Green