| Chronology of Works | xix |
| Acknowledgements | xxix |
| About the Editors | xxxi |
| Introduction | 1 |
6 |
| The Easter Frock, from Come Go Home With Me | 8 |
10 |
| from Bastard Out of Carolina | 12 |
17 |
| from Five Minutes in Heaven | 19 |
22 |
| Ontological | 24 |
| Long Story | 25 |
| Sonnet for Her Labor | 27 |
| A Place with Promise | 28 |
30 |
| from This Day and Time | 32 |
36 |
| from Hunter's Horn | 38 |
| from Seedtime on the Cumberland | 40 |
| The First Ride | 42 |
47 |
| Neighbors | 49 |
| When Grandmother Wept | 49 |
| Cicada's Song | 50 |
| Someday in a Wood | 51 |
| The Stair | 51 |
52 |
| Women Die Like Trees | 54 |
| When Earth Becomes an "It" | 54 |
| Anorexia Bulimia Speaks from the Grave | 55 |
| A Time to Reweave, from Selu | 56 |
| A Time to Study Law, from Selu | 57 |
| Out of Ashes Peace Will Rise | 61 |
62 |
| Belinda, Our Tremendous Gift | 64 |
69 |
| from Behind the Blue Ridge | 71 |
72 |
| from Sara Will | 74 |
77 |
| from Dorie: Woman of the Mountains | 79 |
81 |
| Wildwood Flower | 83 |
| Bittersweet | 84 |
| Lineage | 84 |
| Easter | 86 |
| Mountain Time | 87 |
89 |
| from Sing for Freedom | 91 |
95 |
| 40, from Stories I Ain't Told Nobody Yet | 97 |
| 49, from Stories I Ain't Told Nobody Yet | 98 |
| from Maybe, The Last of the 'Waltz Across Texas' and Other Stories | 99 |
| from Daytrips | 102 |
106 |
| from My Appalachia | 108 |
112 |
| Second Christmas | 114 |
| Spending the Night | 114 |
| Discipline | 115 |
| The Glad Gardener | 116 |
117 |
| from Wilder | 119 |
123 |
| The Boy | 124 |
| Hospitality | 125 |
| The Widow Man | 125 |
| Kivers | 126 |
128 |
| In Envy of Migration | 130 |
| Maps | 131 |
| About the Pelvis | 133 |
| Tick | 134 |
136 |
| The Hillbilly Vampire | 138 |
| The Vampire Ethnographer | 139 |
| No Minority | 140 |
141 |
| Homer-Snake, from Sweet Hollow | 143 |
| Sister | 150 |
| Sports Widow | 151 |
152 |
| from Call Home the Heart | 154 |
156 |
| Country | 158 |
| For Dr. Josefina Garcia & the "Tissue Committee" | 159 |
| Zora neale | 161 |
162 |
| from Life in the Iron Mills | 164 |
168 |
| Giving the Sun | 170 |
| The Hole | 170 |
| Twins | 171 |
| Poetics South | 172 |
| In a Time of Drought | 173 |
| Broadside | 173 |
174 |
| from Praise House | 176 |
179 |
| from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek | 181 |
183 |
| This is what history is | 185 |
| A woman is segmented as an ant | 185 |
| Every open space fills with sky | 186 |
188 |
| Appalachia | 190 |
| Elegy For Jody | 191 |
192 |
| from Fiddling His Way to Fame, The Heart of Old Hickory | 194 |
197 |
| from Return the Innocent Earth | 199 |
| from The French Broad | 204 |
208 |
| from The Durket Sperret | 210 |
213 |
| from More than Moonshine | 215 |
| Granny Brock | 217 |
| Mountains Fill Up the Night | 218 |
| Appalachia, Where are your Hills? | 219 |
220 |
| from Queen Ida's Hair-Doing House of Waves, Heartwood | 222 |
| Irons At Her Feet | 225 |
227 |
| from Sight to the Blind | 229 |
231 |
| from Storming Heaven | 234 |
| from The Unquiet Earth | 236 |
240 |
| from Hannah Fowler | 242 |
245 |
| Griots, from Racism 101 | 247 |
| Knoxville, Tennessee | 249 |
| Revolutionary Dreams | 250 |
| A Poem Off Center | 250 |
252 |
| from A Southern Family | 254 |
257 |
| from The War at Home | 259 |
262 |
| from M.C. Higgins the Great | 264 |
267 |
| Writing Lessons (I.) | 269 |
| She | 270 |
| Writing Lessons (II.) | 271 |
| To her mother, lying in state | 272 |
274 |
| from A Circuit Rider's Wife | 276 |
277 |
| from The Hawk's Done Gone | 279 |
282 |
| from Past Titan Rock | 284 |
287 |
| Ms. Ida Mae, from Tough Customers and Other Stories | 289 |
292 |
| from My Great-Aunt Arizona | 294 |
298 |
| Momma's Letter | 299 |
| The Last Unmined Vein | 300 |
303 |
| from The Long Roll | 305 |
307 |
| from The Autobiography of Mother Jones | 309 |
311 |
| Life and Art in East Tennessee | 312 |
| Hooked Album Quilt, 1870 | 313 |
315 |
| Weather Rhymes | 317 |
319 |
| from Weeds | 321 |
323 |
| from No Place Like Home | 325 |
| The Familiar Level | 327 |
| Refusing a Spinal | 328 |
330 |
| from The Bean Trees | 332 |
| from Prodigal Summer | 336 |
338 |
| from Extended Learning, Farlanburg Stories | 340 |
346 |
| from Some Days There's Pie | 348 |
353 |
| from Coon Creek Girl | 355 |
358 |
| from To Make My Bread | 360 |
364 |
| from With A Hammer for My Heart | 366 |
| Where I'm From | 370 |
| Rings | 371 |
| Salvation | 372 |
| Growing Light | 373 |
374 |
| Mulberries | 376 |
| To My Daughter Going Off to College | 377 |
| Welcome to the Other Side | 379 |
| Good Luck Charm | 380 |
381 |
| from Christy | 383 |
386 |
| The Gifts of the Spirit | 388 |
391 |
| Rain | 392 |
| Saved | 393 |
| Ascension | 394 |
396 |
| from The McCoys | 397 |
400 |
| from The Songcatcher | 402 |
407 |
| from Up the Hill toward Home | 409 |
413 |
| from Mother of the Disappeared: An Appalachian Birth Mother's Journey | 415 |
419 |
| Many Waters | 421 |
| For My Grandmother Who Knows How | 423 |
| The Hollow | 424 |
| Mother Milking | 425 |
| Music | 426 |
428 |
| Twilight in West Virginia: Six O'Clock Mine Report | 430 |
| Deep Mining | 431 |
| Sunday Morning, 1950 | 432 |
| The Only Portrait of Emily Dickinson | 433 |
| Visiting My Gravesite: Talbott Churchyard, West Virginia | 434 |
435 |
| The Other Woman | 437 |
| Aubade to Fear (Heavy with Child) | 437 |
| Hill Daughter | 438 |
| Arrow Grasses by Greenbrier River | 439 |
| from The Milkweed Ladies | 440 |
442 |
| Lanterns and Lamps | 443 |
| First Plowing in the Hills | 444 |
445 |
| from The Spirit of the Mountains | 447 |
449 |
| from The Edge of the Woods | 451 |
| Seventh Grades | 453 |
| Breadstuff | 454 |
455 |
| All Those Nights | 456 |
| Under The Earth | 457 |
| The Way Back | 458 |
459 |
| Story is a Woman | 461 |
| Solidarity in the Night | 462 |
| Ahlawe Usv' Tsigesvgi | 463 |
| Rumors, from Red Woman With Backward Eyes | 464 |
468 |
| from In the Tennessee Mountains | 470 |
472 |
| Briers, from Brier Country: Stories from the Blue Valley | 474 |
478 |
| from Machine Dreams | 480 |
| from Motherkind | 484 |
487 |
| Nativity | 489 |
| Echocardiogram | 490 |
| The Calling | 492 |
494 |
| In the Kitchen We String Beans | 496 |
| Clarissa and the Second Coming | 497 |
| When You Lose a Child | 498 |
| Snake Dreams | 500 |
501 |
| July 18, 1966 | 503 |
| Woman Writer | 504 |
| I Used To Be A Teacup | 505 |
| Discovered | 506 |
| How Do You Remember Him? | 507 |
508 |
| from Singing Family of the Cumberlands | 510 |
513 |
| from The Time of Man | 515 |
517 |
| from Sketches of History, Life, and Manners, in the United States | 519 |
521 |
| from Missing May | 523 |
526 |
| Pink | 528 |
| Mornings, Sheba Combs Her Hair | 529 |
| Liza's Monday | 530 |
| The Morning of the Red-Tailed Hawk | 531 |
| All On A Summer's Afternoon | 532 |
| Legacy For Rachel | 533 |
534 |
| from Addie | 536 |
| from The Killing Ground | 539 |
543 |
| Why I Write | 545 |
| Fat Sestina | 546 |
| Spellcheck | 548 |
549 |
| from Cabins in the Laurel | 551 |
554 |
| Appalachian Winter | 556 |
560 |
| from Our Mountain | 562 |
565 |
| Homecoming | 567 |
| Kathy | 567 |
| My Father. His Rabbits | 568 |
| Backwoods Haiku | 569 |
570 |
| from What My Heart Wants to Tell | 572 |
574 |
| Bad News | 576 |
| And This Is The Way To Be Poor | 577 |
| The Language of Poetry | 578 |
579 |
| Memories of Home | 581 |
583 |
| from Saving Grace | 585 |
591 |
| Cycles from Transparencies | 593 |
| Where Stuarts Lie | 594 |
| Roots | 594 |
| Composition | 595 |
596 |
| from Big Stone Gap | 598 |
602 |
| Economy | 603 |
| New Poor | 603 |
| A Dry Spring | 604 |
| Our Bodies Remember | 605 |
| Force | 607 |
608 |
| from Shadow of the Mountain | 610 |
613 |
| My Boy Elroy, from In the Mountains of America | 615 |
624 |
| from The Raising, From the Bottom Up | 625 |
628 |
| from The Morning Cool | 630 |
| More Women Writing in Appalachia | 635 |
| A Selected Bibliography | 647 |
| Index of Titles and Authors | 653 |
| Permissions | 663 |