APPALACHE, poetry by Steven R. Cope
Publication Date: May 15, 2025
Paperback, 190 pages
ISBN: 978-1-966677-02-4
In Appalache, author Steven R. Cope examines the concept of self worth in a philosophical, often intimate journey through the eternal pulse and pull of Appalachia. In this profoundly honest, sometimes humorously introspective collection, Cope weaves history, place, and legacy to capture astute reflections of the untamed and inescapable: “I move and the eyes of an entire forest lift.” Drawing from three of his previous collections—In Killdeer’s Field, Clover’s Log, and The Mad Reverend—Cope examines the nature of our impermanence, suggesting authenticity exists in a place of humility and reverence: “The frogs sing like the past. / We know him, they sing. / We know this man and what he is, / this one from the many. / We know this man and from whence he is, / this insanely misplaced man.” This richly surreal reflection questions estrangement and belonging, reminding us humanity lies in vigilant fortitude and commitment to land.
Praise for Steven R. Cope & Appalache
Steven R. Cope is a poet of the finest haunt, crafting poems rich in the imagery of our natural surroundings and daily lives in order to carry us both beyond them and deeper within our own inner worlds, propelling us away from minutiae and the trivial toward the elements which buoy and anchor us.
—Timothy Dodd, author of Orbits 52 & Fissures, and Other Stories
We are taught that we must overcome doubt with faith. Steven R. Cope’s poetry offers a different vision—that uncertainty is what opens us to the mysteries of our incarnated being as we might access it through the world around us—animate and inanimate but always numinous. Never fully revealed, never fully present. Listen for these poems as if you’re looking over your shoulder and they’re not there, but you hear them anyway, not the words emerging from the silence, but words that open the silence. Don’t look over your shoulder. Listen. Learn the faith of uncertainty. Then walk in the woods and remember these poems. You will remember them.
—Tim Hunt, author of Western Where & Voice to Voice in the Dark
In Appalache, Steve Cope challenges us to pay attention to our surroundings, to appreciate and consider our place in the natural world, physically and spiritually, as well as our place among our ancestors. He gently reminds us, “I know all my gone dead still live in me.” Drawn from three early collections originally published with Wind, this new reimagining of poems invigorates that conversation. Cope captures the uneasy recognition of being at that place in the forest where you hear your name called and gently reminds us that we are “trained well to ignore / what you cannot / reasonably account for.” In forms ranging from joined couplets to dense luxurious stanzas or scattered word play in the white space, he weaves a brilliant narrative of stories that could easily have sprung from our own lives and populates it with so many folks we think we recognize. This collection resonates most deeply in Cope’s close observations of the world around him, in darkness and in light, in awe of a crane and mite-colored crows, and “sparrows thick as fleas,” in sun permeating grasshopper wings, to a prayer for us to “parley with foxes” or “go to the ant.” Appalache is a welcome return to Cope’s earlier work, an encouragement to explore his extensive catalog, and reminder for us all of the glorious cycle in which we exist.
—Jay McCoy, author of The Occupation
About the Author
When Steven R. Cope’s first book of poems, In Killdeer’s Field, was published in 2002, a blurb noted that he had never lost “his almost obsessive attachment to the hills of eastern Kentucky, where he was born.” Despite the passage of many years and the appearance of many more books since that remark, his obsession remains undiminished. Born in Menifee County, Kentucky on July 3, 1949, Cope’s heart ever remains in those hills. The undergirding and the heartbeat and muscle of his creative impulse derive not from the city, not from the archives of literature, but from a close and fundamental connection with the land and its creatures. However, his thought and his vision extend far beyond any regional boundaries, and his literary antecedents include such writers as Camus, Hesse, Tolstoy, and London. Although he has devoted half his life to music as a songwriter and performer and teacher, having taught guitar to hundreds of students, he is foremost a prolific author of more than a dozen books of poetry and prose, along with over a hundred works of short fiction and countless poems in publication.
Publication Date: May 15, 2025
Paperback, 190 pages
ISBN: 978-1-966677-02-4
In Appalache, author Steven R. Cope examines the concept of self worth in a philosophical, often intimate journey through the eternal pulse and pull of Appalachia. In this profoundly honest, sometimes humorously introspective collection, Cope weaves history, place, and legacy to capture astute reflections of the untamed and inescapable: “I move and the eyes of an entire forest lift.” Drawing from three of his previous collections—In Killdeer’s Field, Clover’s Log, and The Mad Reverend—Cope examines the nature of our impermanence, suggesting authenticity exists in a place of humility and reverence: “The frogs sing like the past. / We know him, they sing. / We know this man and what he is, / this one from the many. / We know this man and from whence he is, / this insanely misplaced man.” This richly surreal reflection questions estrangement and belonging, reminding us humanity lies in vigilant fortitude and commitment to land.
Praise for Steven R. Cope & Appalache
Steven R. Cope is a poet of the finest haunt, crafting poems rich in the imagery of our natural surroundings and daily lives in order to carry us both beyond them and deeper within our own inner worlds, propelling us away from minutiae and the trivial toward the elements which buoy and anchor us.
—Timothy Dodd, author of Orbits 52 & Fissures, and Other Stories
We are taught that we must overcome doubt with faith. Steven R. Cope’s poetry offers a different vision—that uncertainty is what opens us to the mysteries of our incarnated being as we might access it through the world around us—animate and inanimate but always numinous. Never fully revealed, never fully present. Listen for these poems as if you’re looking over your shoulder and they’re not there, but you hear them anyway, not the words emerging from the silence, but words that open the silence. Don’t look over your shoulder. Listen. Learn the faith of uncertainty. Then walk in the woods and remember these poems. You will remember them.
—Tim Hunt, author of Western Where & Voice to Voice in the Dark
In Appalache, Steve Cope challenges us to pay attention to our surroundings, to appreciate and consider our place in the natural world, physically and spiritually, as well as our place among our ancestors. He gently reminds us, “I know all my gone dead still live in me.” Drawn from three early collections originally published with Wind, this new reimagining of poems invigorates that conversation. Cope captures the uneasy recognition of being at that place in the forest where you hear your name called and gently reminds us that we are “trained well to ignore / what you cannot / reasonably account for.” In forms ranging from joined couplets to dense luxurious stanzas or scattered word play in the white space, he weaves a brilliant narrative of stories that could easily have sprung from our own lives and populates it with so many folks we think we recognize. This collection resonates most deeply in Cope’s close observations of the world around him, in darkness and in light, in awe of a crane and mite-colored crows, and “sparrows thick as fleas,” in sun permeating grasshopper wings, to a prayer for us to “parley with foxes” or “go to the ant.” Appalache is a welcome return to Cope’s earlier work, an encouragement to explore his extensive catalog, and reminder for us all of the glorious cycle in which we exist.
—Jay McCoy, author of The Occupation
About the Author
When Steven R. Cope’s first book of poems, In Killdeer’s Field, was published in 2002, a blurb noted that he had never lost “his almost obsessive attachment to the hills of eastern Kentucky, where he was born.” Despite the passage of many years and the appearance of many more books since that remark, his obsession remains undiminished. Born in Menifee County, Kentucky on July 3, 1949, Cope’s heart ever remains in those hills. The undergirding and the heartbeat and muscle of his creative impulse derive not from the city, not from the archives of literature, but from a close and fundamental connection with the land and its creatures. However, his thought and his vision extend far beyond any regional boundaries, and his literary antecedents include such writers as Camus, Hesse, Tolstoy, and London. Although he has devoted half his life to music as a songwriter and performer and teacher, having taught guitar to hundreds of students, he is foremost a prolific author of more than a dozen books of poetry and prose, along with over a hundred works of short fiction and countless poems in publication.
Publication Date: May 15, 2025
Paperback, 190 pages
ISBN: 978-1-966677-02-4
In Appalache, author Steven R. Cope examines the concept of self worth in a philosophical, often intimate journey through the eternal pulse and pull of Appalachia. In this profoundly honest, sometimes humorously introspective collection, Cope weaves history, place, and legacy to capture astute reflections of the untamed and inescapable: “I move and the eyes of an entire forest lift.” Drawing from three of his previous collections—In Killdeer’s Field, Clover’s Log, and The Mad Reverend—Cope examines the nature of our impermanence, suggesting authenticity exists in a place of humility and reverence: “The frogs sing like the past. / We know him, they sing. / We know this man and what he is, / this one from the many. / We know this man and from whence he is, / this insanely misplaced man.” This richly surreal reflection questions estrangement and belonging, reminding us humanity lies in vigilant fortitude and commitment to land.
Praise for Steven R. Cope & Appalache
Steven R. Cope is a poet of the finest haunt, crafting poems rich in the imagery of our natural surroundings and daily lives in order to carry us both beyond them and deeper within our own inner worlds, propelling us away from minutiae and the trivial toward the elements which buoy and anchor us.
—Timothy Dodd, author of Orbits 52 & Fissures, and Other Stories
We are taught that we must overcome doubt with faith. Steven R. Cope’s poetry offers a different vision—that uncertainty is what opens us to the mysteries of our incarnated being as we might access it through the world around us—animate and inanimate but always numinous. Never fully revealed, never fully present. Listen for these poems as if you’re looking over your shoulder and they’re not there, but you hear them anyway, not the words emerging from the silence, but words that open the silence. Don’t look over your shoulder. Listen. Learn the faith of uncertainty. Then walk in the woods and remember these poems. You will remember them.
—Tim Hunt, author of Western Where & Voice to Voice in the Dark
In Appalache, Steve Cope challenges us to pay attention to our surroundings, to appreciate and consider our place in the natural world, physically and spiritually, as well as our place among our ancestors. He gently reminds us, “I know all my gone dead still live in me.” Drawn from three early collections originally published with Wind, this new reimagining of poems invigorates that conversation. Cope captures the uneasy recognition of being at that place in the forest where you hear your name called and gently reminds us that we are “trained well to ignore / what you cannot / reasonably account for.” In forms ranging from joined couplets to dense luxurious stanzas or scattered word play in the white space, he weaves a brilliant narrative of stories that could easily have sprung from our own lives and populates it with so many folks we think we recognize. This collection resonates most deeply in Cope’s close observations of the world around him, in darkness and in light, in awe of a crane and mite-colored crows, and “sparrows thick as fleas,” in sun permeating grasshopper wings, to a prayer for us to “parley with foxes” or “go to the ant.” Appalache is a welcome return to Cope’s earlier work, an encouragement to explore his extensive catalog, and reminder for us all of the glorious cycle in which we exist.
—Jay McCoy, author of The Occupation
About the Author
When Steven R. Cope’s first book of poems, In Killdeer’s Field, was published in 2002, a blurb noted that he had never lost “his almost obsessive attachment to the hills of eastern Kentucky, where he was born.” Despite the passage of many years and the appearance of many more books since that remark, his obsession remains undiminished. Born in Menifee County, Kentucky on July 3, 1949, Cope’s heart ever remains in those hills. The undergirding and the heartbeat and muscle of his creative impulse derive not from the city, not from the archives of literature, but from a close and fundamental connection with the land and its creatures. However, his thought and his vision extend far beyond any regional boundaries, and his literary antecedents include such writers as Camus, Hesse, Tolstoy, and London. Although he has devoted half his life to music as a songwriter and performer and teacher, having taught guitar to hundreds of students, he is foremost a prolific author of more than a dozen books of poetry and prose, along with over a hundred works of short fiction and countless poems in publication.