What We Said

WHAT WE SAID is a collection of poems by Sue Chenette exploring her eyewitness experience of the War on Poverty in Appalachian communities in eastern Kentucky during the 1960s. Chenette was herself a case worker during this era in Knox County. It was a heady time during which programs such as VISTA, Head Start, Job Corps, and other community action programs designed to lift poverty-riddled areas into more stable financial and education circumstances. Chenette and many others moved into communities to help the War on Poverty succeed. Her poems include different voices, take various forms, and propel the reader into that specific time and place with striking imagery and clarity.