My ekphrastic poem, “For Want of an Ark,” is the first collaborative work published in the new “Call & Response” series by the Looking at Appalachia photography project, which has been featured in The New York Times and National Geographic.
My poem was inspired by my own experience in the “1,000-year flood” of Elk River in June, 2016 and by the image it is paired with for this project–Sam Owens’ photo of a flood survivor sorting flood-damaged photographs on her roof. The photo originally appeared in The Charleston Gazette shortly after the flood.

Photo by Sam Owens

Poem by V.C. McCabe
Published by V. C. McCabe
V.C. McCabe is an Appalachian poet, the author of Give the Bard a Tetanus Shot (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press, 2019), a reader for Frontier Poetry, and an associate editor for the upcoming Nigerian National Poetry Prize. She was co-editor of the New International Voices series (Ice Floe Press), a contributing editor for Barren Magazine, and a music journalist for Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper The Charleston Gazette. Her work has appeared in ekphrastic exhibits and journals worldwide, including EPOCH, Poet Lore, Prairie Schooner, and The Minnesota Review. She has lived in Ireland and West Virginia. Her website is vcmccabe.com.
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