Seeing Things
This Is Not About Us

Keystone Poetry

From Philadelphia to Erie, and from the shale fields to the coal mines, Keystone Poetry celebrates the varied landscapes and voices of Pennsylvania. This collection brings together the work of 182 poets who, with keen eyes and powerful language, commemorate the hometowns, history, traditions, and culture of the Commonwealth.

Organized geographically, the poems traverse county lines, ancestral lineages, and thematic concerns–as well as gender, racial, and socioeconomic barriers. The poems in this collection seek to bring the reader close to home while fostering the discovery of new places and a deeper understanding of all those who live in the Keystone State.

Keystone Poetry also includes resources for teachers. Drawing from this collection of place-based literature, high school and college educators can use students’ hometown experiences to make disciplines such as literature, composition, creative writing, history, geography, sociology, political science, and psychology more engaging and accessible.

– To delve more deeply into class discussion, see “Let’s Talk About It,” a helpful aid for individual or group reflection.

– To fuel creativity, access “Let’s Write About It,” a practical guide to inspire writers of all levels.

More Adult Books

  • Nothing in the world soothes the soul better than Gospel music.

  • A cautionary tale about the fragility of democracy, it is an alarming, eerily timeless look at how fascism could take hold in America.

  • From the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner, a passionate, profound story of love and obsession that brings us back and forth in time, as a narrative is assembled from the emotions, hopes, fears, and deep realities of Black urban life. With a foreword by the author.

  • In Juneteenth Rodeo, Bird's lens celebrates a world that was undervalued at the time, capturing everything, from the moment the pit master fired up his smoker, through the death-defying rides, to the last celebratory dance at a nearby honky-tonk.