Saturday Review: “Learning to Listen in Western North Carolina,” a review by Jessica Cory of John Thomas York’s The Charge (2024) and Kathryn Kirkpatrick’s Creature (2025), in NCLR Online Spring 2026.
Two recent poetry collections remind us “we can learn what it means to be human in these mountains,” writes regular reviewer Jessica Cory. First, is the impact of John York’s The Charge. It’s a collaboration between a father and daughter connecting music, stories, and places in order to celebrate a family heritage and history: Deep Gap’s Watson Family. With the accompaniment of his daughter Rachel York’s compositions and the lyrics of famed bluegrass musician Doc Watson, John Thomas York is able to convey the beauty in the music of life.
Cory then moves on to discuss Kathryn Kirkpatrick’s Creature. She highlights Kirkpatrick’s poems centering around motherhood, nature, and eventually, the relationships between humans and their dogs. She discusses these natural and earthly topics and relationships with grit, “examin[ing] the grief and loss that permeate the lives of humans and other creatures, as well as the care all beings require.”
Cory ends the review recognizing that although York and Kirkpatrick have different focal points, their works are connected through sound: “These poems collectively capture the soundscapes and associated emotions of life in these mountains, illustrating how we share this place and these soundscapes with other humans.”
Read the entire review here. Buy a copy of The Charge here and Creature here, or find them at your local independent bookstore.
