COVID-19 In Appalachia: Poetry And Legacy In WNC

For some artists, the pandemic was a time for creation and reflection. As part of BPR and Foxfire Museum's oral history project Jackson County poet Louise Runyon shared her poetry about pandemic - and her family connection to Western North Carolina. She was interviewed by Foxfire Museum curator Kami Ahrens in March 2021. Louise Morgan Runyon: I'm Louise Morgan Runyon and I live in Jackson County, North Carolina. And I moved here only two years ago, but I have come up to this place for my entire life. All of my family is from here and has been here for eight generations as they like to say. And, so it's always been my plan and my dream to return to these mountains and live here. My grandfather, Ralph Siler Morgan Sr.--the first--was my mother's brother; I'm sorry, was Lucy and Rufus's brother. And there were three other children that lived, I believe, and I think three that died. I grew up in the mountains--in New York City and in the mountains of North Carolina. My mother was born in