In the 1960's, after graduation from Berea, Lee Pennington went to Harlan County to teach poetry to Kentucky Community College students. Under his tutelage, they published four books of poetry, Spirit Hollow, Thirteen, The Long Way Home and Tomorrow's People. It was this last book that got him in trouble, as the students were honest and frank about their locale, religion and relationships, and local authorities took offense. So much so that a price was put on Pennington's head and he had to leave with armed guards to protect him. This, of course, made national news and he was asked to speak all over the United States.
It was not the students or the population of Harlan County who hated Pennington, but the establishment, the executives, the law-enforcers and managers who disapproved of his freedom and honesty. As Jean W. Ross writes in the DLB Yearbook, "the students' work was in part critical of strip-mining, traditional religious teaching, and the hypocrisy of authority." She writes of Lee's subsequent book on the subject,
Songs of Bloody Harlan, , published first in North American Mentor (Summer 1971), and in book form in 1975, is Pennington's toughly realistic but ultimately loving tribute to the region that had driven him out in 1967. He wrote of the poetry's genesis, "For two years following my experience in Harlan County, I didn't say anything. But a poet doesn't have that choice either. . . . Songs of Bloody Harlan is my comment." (Jean W. Ross, Dictionary of Literary Biography Yearbook 1982, p. 335)
Pennington's book, Songs of Bloody Harlan was one of his early publications, with a small edition of 100 printed, in 1975. Its popularity grew until it became very valuable, with a high price of $2,500 listed for one available on Amazon in 2018. This edition fulfills many people's desire to own a copy of this rare book, and it deserves reprinting so that all may partake of the experience Pennington lived, with all of it beauty, love and agony.
Author Biography:
Lee Pennington, a graduate of Berea College in Kentucky and University of Iowa, holds two Honorary Doctor degrees. He taught creative writing 40 years at UK's Jefferson Community College. He has traveled extensively. He's the author of 21 books, has had nine plays produced, over 1300 poems and thousands of articles published. In 1984 he was designated Poet Laureate of Kentucky. He continues to write poetry, and is a filmmaker. Sharon Sherman, writing in the Louisville Times, (November 2, 1968), reported on his career after he accepted a new position in Louisville. She reports that "Pennington won't allow his students to be 'suspended above life on the end of a spider web called college.' They write and submit their work for publication. They file rejection slips-or paper a wall with them-and send their writings out again. No one is happier than the teacher when his insistence pays off. 'It's like a dam bursting, ' he explained, 'When one of them gets published, you can't stop the others.'" She then quotes Pennington, in reference to the reactionary episode at Southeastern Community College, who said "We create myths about ourselves and when they're exposed it frightens us." And again, "Those young people looked at their area-and maybe for the first time they knew the truth. They wrote the truth with love, but the power structure understood." Miss Sherman then reported that "Pennington picked up a thin, soft-backed book and flipped its pages. 'Look at that, ' he said with an edge of bitterness in his voice. His fingers rested on the dedication page, underlining the words: To Harlan County. 'How ironic, ' he said. 'They created something and they offered their creation. I don't say all of it is the best poetry in the world, but it's real-it's not false, not fake.... How people can be anything but proud of these young men and women I'll never know.... Those kids have just recorded the poems for a national company. Doesn't anyone see what an achievement that is for a group of mountain kids?'" Waynette Shackelford, in her article, "Life is for Touching," in The Kentucky School Journal (November 1971), has written a revealing profile of Pennington and how he teaches. She said "Recently, while speaking before a poetry class he instigated a session on sensitivity to sight. It was brought out that a familiar object could be seen-with just a bit of imagination-to resemble an entirely different object. This new image could then be used as a descriptive phrase in poetry or other writing. Being aware of the way an object appears could be the difference between dead writing and that which is alive."
