The poems in Kate Vigneron’s newest collection journey from seashore to desert to the mountains of West Virginia.
Unwinding the Sun, Vigneron’s third poetry collection, is her largest yet. The book offers 71 pages of reflections and observations. “Ode to Autumn” and “Wolf Creek Mountain,” which debuted during a reading at a Greenbrier Valley Theatre Literary Tea event in Lewisburg.
“Wolf Creek Mountain” is a rumination on an area mountain settled two centuries ago and now mostly abandoned. Vigneron created the poem after she hiked the mountain, finding stacked stones and other evidence of those who once dwelled there.
The mountain as a subject for a poem was suggested to Vigneron by Belinda Anderson, an area author who participated in a commissioned oral history project of the mountain.
Anderson sent the poet an e-mail saying, “I have a feeling that you could capture that haunting nostalgic atmosphere of a vanished community.”
“And that’s exactly what she did,” Anderson said. “Kate is a keen observer. She writes with thoughtfulness and respect for nature and for the human spirit.”
“Nature offers me information that transfers to metaphor,” Vigneron said. “There are stories of the human condition in every movement of the leaves, every fallen tree, every sea shell and moonbeam.”
Other poems reflect other places Vigneron has lived, including France, the Texas desert and Louisiana, where she grew up. She now resides part time in West Virginia.
Unwinding the Sun is available at A New Chapter bookstore in downtown Lewisburg.
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