These poems piece together the narrative of an American family's wrenching migration from a long-evolved culture of farms and mines in Appalachia to an industrial city, where they become 'hillbillies' in the eyes of their urban neighbours. Geographically, the move is only two hundred miles, but in human terms the upheaval rivals that of the family's Celtic ancestors who made their way from Ulster and Wales to the New World colonies. Change, with its inevitable gains and losses, informs this journey from a backwoods legacy of the mule-drawn plough to the hustle of an anonymous assembly line. The poet draws on childhood sensibilities to explore the theme and to craft memory into language.

Jeri McCormick was born in the Kentucky Appalachians and grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio. She was the recipient of a 1997 Wisconsin Arts Board Fellowship, funded by the National Endowment for the Ar ts. Following a year in Dublin earlier in the decade, she returns annually to Ireland. In 1994 she was a prize-winner in the Boyle Arts Festival Poetry Competition. She is currently at work on a manuscript inspired by a visit to the Famine Museum at Strokestown, Co. Roscommon. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin and teaches creative writing.

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