Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, COAL TOWN, by MALCOLM COWLEY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

COAL TOWN, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: They scarred the hillside here to build a town
Last Line: Beauty is hammering, pounding through my brain.
Subject(s): Beauty; Love


THEY scarred the hillside here to build a town:
gaunt above slag and cinder, and despising
the paint-splashed cabins, muddy pink and brown,
the tipple looms — vast, black, uncompromising.

All day the wagons lumber past: the wide
squat wheels hub deep, the horses strained and still,
the headlong rain pours down all day to hide
the blackened stumps, the ulcerated hill.

O beauty:
all my life I loved you fiercely
and even in this desolate place, where rain
drips endlessly from all the eaves, and scarcely
a leaf sprouts, and the earth is wracked with pain
beauty is hammering, pounding through my brain.





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