H S Sowards

Homeplace H S Sowards

Homeplace is a mixed-genre collection of poems, essays, and a few things somewhere in between. It mines memory, familial and community personages, and history, while courting fiction to bring to the surface a vision of life in West Virginia during the last quarter of the twentieth century. Of course, it is a personal vision conjured by one man ruminating over his life. He interrogates one family and one community. Yet, even these expanded categories are presented as apprehended by the flailing scribe whose observations provide the routes and byways for this sojourn. If Homeplace has a theme, it is one of homecoming-a prodigal's homecoming. Though the recollections and observations are hemmed in a bit by their personal nature, and they are in no way exhaustively representative of the varieties of Appalachian experience, it is hoped that a diverse audience might find common ground in these run-of-the-mill incitements of memory. Some are happy; some are complicated, but all of them are true to heart-even when stretched just a touch. It would be enough if many readers find themselves considering the peculiarities of their own place-time among the hills and hollers of life-longing to return to that special homeplace known only to them.