TROUBLESOME RISING DIGITAL ANTHOLOGY
Hundred Year Flood Moves Forward, Hundreds of Years of Progress Moves Backward
Hilda Downer
The creeks are rising
trying to fill the giant shoes
Helene Flood carved in fields and roads
as directions for floods to take now.
There was the flood.
Then, there was the election.
No poet invited to read
at the presidential inauguration
was a hazardous weather warning.
Lies and denial of global warming,
the conspiracy theory storm,
the rights that some died for
overcome by a lawless daily flood,
I want to write love letters
stamped by the moon’s bright seal of approval—
not FEMA-denied-for-disaster
emergency poetry.
How to Write About Trauma While Thinking About the Iris after the Helene Flood
Hilda Downer
Hilda Downer is the inaugural High Country Poet Laureate. She is the author of four books of poetry and a forthcoming chapbook. She is the editor of Had I a Dove: Appalachian Poets on the Helene Flood. She is retired from teaching English at Appalachian State University and as a psychiatric nurse. She received an MFA from Vermont College and is a long-term member of SAWC. She lives in Sugar Grove, NC.
Edited by Melissa Helton
Length: 272 pages
Releases: September 2024
