Growing up in the Laurel Highlands there is no shortage of inspiration to be found. A great country music songwriter once told me when he found my notebooks of poems that when you walk the trail long enough, the words just come naturally. I used to sit on the shores of Lake Erie and in the Laurel Highlands and carry these small notebooks with me. Sometimes they became so worn and torn and covered in moss that they themselves took on their own quality and their own feeling. Some were covered in sand from Lake Erie, others in moss and cool waters from Lynn Run State Park. Some were held in history like Fort Ligonier, where I spent my childhood.

A fifth book of poetry by Laurel Highlands Author William C Semo. This time his focus is on the Loyalhanna Creek and the gorge that he grew up in, fishing and dreaming, learning what it was of his family's history and the history of the Laurel Highlands and America itself. Each of these poems is a rockfall reflection of memories building up into the rapids of verse as only he can put it.

In his second collection, Casteen moves inward from the physical labor and vernacular culture that shaped his first book, Free Union, yet continues to focus on landscape and human relationships. These poems dwell in the music of language, the hard truths of those who are no longer young, and the pleasures of the reflective life.

History lies almost forgotten among the low mountains and quaint towns of Pennsylvania's Laurel Highlands. Tales of Titanic survivors, brilliant inventors and forgotten heroes are all a part of the region's dim past. Since the 1790s, the highlands have been home to a booming glass industry that spun out early windows and flasks and, later, beautifully cut pieces of art. The wonder of the World's Fair of 1893 was none other than Westmoreland's H.C. Frick Coke Co.'s replica of a modern mine. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, lush fields and meadows produced the country's finest whiskey, Monongahela Rye. Author Cassandra Vivian travels off the beaten path to explore the hidden history of the Laurel Highlands.

Over the years, Pennsylvania has been graced with an abundance of writers whose work draws imaginatively on the state’s history and culture. Common Wealth sings the essence of Pennsylvania through contemporary poetry. Whether Pennsylvania is their point of origin or their destination, the featured poets ultimately find what matters: heritage, pride, work, inventiveness, struggle, faith, beauty, hope. Keystone poets Marjorie Maddox and Jerry Wemple celebrate Pennsylvania with this wide range of new and veteran poets, including former state poet Samuel Hazo, National Book Award winner Gerald Stern, Pulitzer Prize winners Maxine Kumin, W. S. Merwin, and W. D. Snodgrass, and Reading-born master John Updike. The book’s 103 poets also include such noted authors as Diane Ackerman, Maggie Anderson, Jan Beatty, Robin Becker, Jim Daniels, Toi Derricotte, Gary Fincke, Harry Humes, Julia Kasdorf, Ed Ochester, Jay Parini, Len Roberts, Sonia Sanchez, Betsy Sholl, and Judith Vollmer. In these pages, poems sketch the landscapes and cultural terrain of the state, delving into the history, traditions, and people of Philadelphia, “Dutch” country, the coal-mining region, the Poconos, and the Lehigh Valley; the Three Rivers region; the Laurel Highlands; and Erie and the Allegheny National Forest. Theirs is a complex narrative cultivated for centuries in coal mines, kitchens, elevated trains, and hometowns, a tale that illuminates the sanctity of the commonplace—the daily chores of a Mennonite housewife, a polka dance in Coaldale, the late shift at a steel factory, the macadam of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. With its panoramic vision of Pennsylvania, its culture, and its thriving literary heritage, Common Wealth is a collection of remembrance for a state that continues to inspire countless contributions to American literature.