So glad that the former Kentucky Poet Laureate has a poetry collection at last! As with his fiction, House’s work resonates most deeply the closer he stays to his Appalachian roots. With poems like “Double Creek Girl” and “Lunchlady” he transports the reader to a hardscrabble start that was tough but also suffused with the joy of family ties and the beauty of nature. Poems about queerness, protest, timesickness and soup beans all exist side by side in this collection, as in life.
All These Ghosts by Silas House, (List Price: $22.95, Blair, 9781958888698, September 2025)
Reviewed by Sam Miller, Carmichael’s Bookstore in Louisville, Kentucky