Coal mountain against the grain

Poet Mark Nowak, who explored the mind-boggling loss and devastation that mining communities face around the globe in his book Coal Mountain Elementary, talks about that project on the latest Against the Grain podcast.

Nowak explains how Coal Mountain Elementary is a poetic pastiche that weaves newspaper reports and mining pedagogy together with narratives about the disaster in Sago, West Virginia that left 12 miners dead and mining communities in China, where it is not uncommon for a dozen miners to lose their lives in a single day. Nowak considers himself a “documentary poet” because his work draws upon contemporary cinema and nontraditional musical mash-ups. Through the “different but all too similar” stories of Chinese and American miners, he examines the long-term effects of the industry on mining communities and the social and political forces that shape dangerous mining practices - and how we are collectively responsible for them.  

You can read more about Nowak's project and where it took him in Justin Hopper's feature, "From Sago to Xinjiang."