Light at the Seam, a new collection from North Carolina poet Joseph Bathanti, is an exploration of mountaintop removal in southern Appalachian coal country. The volume illuminates and champions often invisible people residing, in a precarious moment in time, on the glorious, yet besieged, Appalachian earth. Their call to defend it, as well as their faith that the land will exact its own reckoning, constitutes a sacred as well as existential quest. Rooted in social and restorative justice, Light at the Seam contemplates the earth as fundamentally sacramental, a crucible of awe and mystery, able to regenerate itself and its people even as it succumbs to them. More than mere cautionary tale, this is a volume of hope and wonder.
Light at the Seam
Out of gauzy lavender fog,
the wakened sun
swoons in white robes:
Jesus, flanked by Moses
and Elijah, transfigured,
up into a high mountain
apart. Deep within,
miners suspire,
shake light at the seam.
This is the afterlife,
threshold of oblivion:
a blacktop crest
on Pine Mountain,
Bell County, Kentucky,
US Route 119 burning
north through the heart
of coal until it plays out,
frozen, in DuBois, PA.
About the Speaker
JOSEPH BATHANTI, former poet laureate of North Carolina (2012–14) and recipient of the North Carolina Award in Literature, is the author of seventeen books. He is the McFarlane Family Distinguished Professor of Interdisciplinary Education at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina.
ABOUT TAC TALKS
Featuring scholars from around the country, the lectures are selected to provide supplemental information on our current exhibits or to highlight the history and heritage of the mountains.