This Mountain’s Music: Singing and Landscape in the Poetry of Kathryn Stripling Byer

In an interactive 15 minute presentation using song and verse, I will demonstrate how poetry sustains the culture of Kay Byer’s mountain places. Singing provides escape, attends to tradition, and voices the hopes and fears of those inhabiting the southern Appalachian Mountains. Likewise, poetry functions in a similar way. Often times, poetry can even be considered music. Music, poetry, and place form an intersection that can be physically navigated much like one might navigate a landscape. In the poetry of Kay Byer, singing is much more than personal expression and her poetry is more than rhythmic verses. Byer’s use of song and rhythm sustains mountain culture through her poetry. Songs create “place” in the home. Songs pass down the lore of the community. Songs enable the singers to escape their places and experience mental journeys− whether they can leave their environments or not. Songs sustain the voices of the past. And in her poetry, Byer does all of this too