My People Was Music

"Kirk Judd combines 3-D images and powerful rhythm and rhyme to perfectly express his subjects-birth and death, songs and silence, and everything in between. With compassion and wisdom, he provides for readers and listeners a man-sized, blood-warming antidote to the frequently encountered negative stereotype of his beloved Appalachia. In short, Kirk Judd is not only a poet's poet; he's a people's poet." --Barbara Smith "This is true poetry without the pretense of thin poesy. These are unvarnished words that hang like weightless images in front of your consciousness. This is poetry from someplace deeper than the heart. (Kirk Judd) can reach far inside more quickly than anyone I know." --Lee Maynard "A wise poet knows to choose his epigraph well and when Kirk Judd chooses Louise McNeill's verse to launch his own words, I knew there would be smooth, sweet sailing ahead. Known to many as a superior raconteur, these poems reflect Judd's ease with that kind of familiar banter. Not to say that Judd doesn't take risks here. Few poets these days would fearlessly drape their poems with the grit of dialect, but he does and with a success that should make readers come away with a closer experience of West Virginia and its people." --Marc Harshman - WV Poet Laureate