CHARLESTON — Labor Day weekend 2021 marks the 100th anniversary of the 1921 Battle of Blair Mountain, and organizations across West Virginia are making sure it doesn’t slip by unnoticed.
EcoTheo Review, and
Tar River Poetry. An Appalachian poet living in West Virginia, she has also lived in Ireland and England. Her website is vcmccabe.com.
INTRODUCTION
Poetry, like any form of art, is as subjective in creation as it is in reception. There is no one way to be a poet. Our reasons and methods for writing vary, shaped by our respective experiences and imaginations. As an autodidactic poet with a day job, my path to poetry and publication diverged greatly from academically trained and funded writers. What we do have in common is a dedication to the practice of poetry.
Addressing the information gap for Black West Virginians
When Crystal Good was sixteen years old, she tried to buy one of the last Black newspapers in West Virginia. “Looking back, I’m not sure how I thought I was going to pay for it,” Good says, laughing. “And of course, they wouldn’t sell me the paper, but they asked me to sell ads for them. And I was like,
Oh, hell no.” Years later, Good is building a publication of her own, one “that allows for Black voices to have their own microphones, not the microphone passed to them and then taken back,” she says.
Kyle Vass/ WVPB Roughly 20 people signed up to speak to the Charleston City Council on April 5, 2021 regarding a harm reduction ordinance.
The Charleston City Council has postponed a vote on whether to regulate syringe service programs operating in the city.
The council met Monday night in part to consider a local bill that would potentially criminalize harm reduction programs happening in the capital city.
The topic brought out a crowd of more than 100 people, many who took to the podium to speak to their elected officials. Doctors, clergy, those in recovery and those who love someone with a substance use disorder spoke out against the bill.