Poetry by Mark Nowak, with photographs by Ian Teh and Mark Nowak
April 1, 2009 6 x 9 170 pages 978-1-56689-228-5
A singular, genre-defying treatise from one of Americas most innovative political poets, Coal Mountain Elementary remixes verbatim testimony from the surviving Sago, West Virginia miners and rescue teams, the American Coal Foundations curriculum for schoolchildren, newspaper accounts of mining disasters in China, and full-color photographs of Chinese miners by renowned photojournalist Ian Teh.
About the Author
A poet and labor activist heralded by Adrienne Rich for regenerating the rich tradition of working-class literature, Mark Nowak regularly leads transnational poetry workshops between American and international trade unions. The author of Revenants and Shut Up Shut Down, he has also been a contributor to the Poetry Foundation's Harriet blog.
A Malaysian-born, British photojournalist, Ian Teh has been documenting working conditions in China for over a decade. His photographs have appeared in Newsweek, Time, Fortune,the New Yorker, and the UK Independent Magazine and have been widely exhibited, most recently in Beijing.