The Night the Rain Had Nowhere to Go

William Woolfitt grew up in Farmington, West Virginia. He is the author of four poetry collections, two story collections, and an essay collection. Ring of Earth (stories) was published by Madville Publishing in 2023; Eyes Moving Through the Dark (essays) is forthcoming from Orison Books. He attended Fairmont State University, Hollins University, and Penn State University, and lives in Southeast Tennessee.

Credo Written with Berry Juice and Rust 1Mountain Sweep 2West Virginia in the Later Anthropocene 4The Night the Rain Had Nowhere to Go 6Fragment 7Track One: The Wreck on the C. & O. 8Track Two: Levee Camp Blues 9Turquoise Circles 10Two Sketches Pulled from the Gray Air 12Self-Portrait Drawn with Bituminous, Pocahontas,and Smokeless Coal 13In Prenter Hollow 14Salt Hands at the Kanawha Salines 16Ghost Picture (Aubade with Pink Muckets) 17Let There Be More Coal 18Scenes from a Documentary History 20Twilight in the Appalachian Forests 23Buying Snowball Pumpkins in Athens, Tennessee 24Track Three: When You Come to the Jordan 25Figures Chipped and Molded from Korl 26Track Four: Cumberland Gap 28Track Five: In the House Blues 29A Strange Land 31The Clay Eaters 32Track Six: Buddy Won’ t You Roll Down the Line 33Making a Home Near Cleveland, Tennessee 34Extracts from Letters of Rev. Evan Jones, 1838 35Coal Creek Litany 37In the Clearing 38Muriel Rukeyser Interviews the Driller’ s Wifeat Gauley Bridge 39Tin Can with No Label 40In the Deer Wallows 41Tongueless 42Track Seven: Fare Thee Well 43Is There a Sea 44Dry Run Creek 45Devil’ s Swamp Lake 46Tributary 47Roads Into Fog 48Track Eight: Elk River Boys 49The Kanawha Valley Is Witness 51The She-Devil of Abu Ghraib 54Blast Log 55A Small History of Mines 56Visible Witness 57Lines Written the Night Before Drivingto Lone Rock, Tennessee 58Benediction 59Track Nine: In the Pines 60Acknowledgments 62