Dispatch from the Mountain State: Poems

Dispatch from the Mountain State encompasses the trademark themes of a mature poet—death, despair, dread, and the seeming randomness with which all of these come into life. The dispatches provide, if sometimes obliquely, a keen awareness of the troubled times within which we live, whether the flashpoint be race, the recent pandemic, or the reckless onslaught of the Appalachian mining industry, which is masterfully addressed in the long poem, “The Breach.” Harshman’s distinctive vision remai...