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Coal Mountain Elementary
Reviews
Howard Zinn:
“Coal Mountain Elementary is an imaginative and shocking reminder of what it means, in the most human and poignant terms, to be a miner, whether in this country or in China, or for that matter anywhere in the industrial world. It is also a tribute to miners and working people everywhere. It manages, in photos and in words, to portray an entire culture. And it is a stunning educational tool.”
Aihwa Ong, Head and Professor of Socio-cultural House, Department of Anthropology at University of California-Berkeley:
“Mark Nowak’s vital poetry cleaves to the hard surfaces of working lives. There is an epic quality to the voices that cannot be dismissed by corporations or the state. Coal Mountain Elementary will move readers to indignation and action."
From Davis & Elkins College, on the poem-play, “Sago,” adapted from Coal Mountain Elementary and staged in 2007 at the Boiler House theater in West Virginia:
“One year ago this past January, twelve men lost their lives in a coal mine at Sago . . . Last Friday evening, an overflow crowd packed the Boiler House theater . . . On stage that night, five members of the D&E community brought to life the voices of the forgotten, captured by author, poet, and activist Mark Nowak in his powerful poem-play, “Sago.” . . . characters took shape in the darkness; voices swelled with love, rage, hope, and despair; the audience was stunned to a thoughtful silence.”
Also available by this author:
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