Louise Runyon began writing poetry in 1979, her first artistic endeavor after graduating from Oberlin College with a degree in English and Theatre Arts. The first woman to work at Atlantic Steel since World War II, she was inspired by that experience to create her early poems and choreography. Her writing soon moved into creating text for dance-theatre pieces, but poetry reemerged in 1999. Runyon produced her first book of poems, Reborn, in 2004, followed by LANDSCAPE / Fear & Love in 2007, The Clearing in 2011, The Passion of Older Women in 2018, and Where Is Our Prague Spring? in 2022.

Scroll down for Sample Poems and Video.

About Where Is Our Prague Spring?

Where Is Our Prague Spring?, Louise Morgan Runyon’s fifth book of poetry, examines Runyon's deep love for the mountains of Western North Carolina; her childhood experience of love there; and her attempts to reconcile this love with the hatred and division found in the present. A great-niece of Lucy Morgan, founder of the renowned Penland School of Crafts, Runyon honors her visionary and activist family in these poems. Publication of this book is supported by the Jackson County (NC) Arts Council.

Praise for Where Is Our Prague Spring?

» These thoughtful poems evoke an Appalachia that few outsiders know: simultaneously progressive and conservative, woven into the wider world in unexpected ways, and rooted deeply in the labor and vision of women.”"

» Runyon's manner of writing engages the reader in conversations about contemporary themes that reflect stories of the past while providing lessons for the future. A must-read for any lover of Appalachian literature.”

About The Passion of Older Women

This book is a manifesto on the wisdom, strength, needs and desires of older women – the rising demographic in our country. A testament in part to women of the previous generation “who have brought us safe this far,” the book affirms that older women will not go gently into this goodnight, the last phase of our lives. The poems are inspired by working the earth, love of the Southern Appalachians, the experience of writing in Italian, the current political situation, and the status of older women in relationship to men. Included also are two short prose pieces -- a life story in fable format and a summary of Runyon’s work as a dancer/choreographer.

Praise for The Passion of Older Women

» It is the natural world and women's part in it that propel Louise Runyon's The Passion of Older Women along journeys, meditations, stories and truths common to us all. We walk with Runyon down an "Oasis Aisle at Kroger;" we ponder with her the eternal male/female divide; we look over her shoulder as she writes a letter to Jhumpa Lahiri (in Italian); and are present as Frances, in her beloved mountains, weaves her own shroud. And as the poet observes in this remarkable collection, "There is at times a shift, an ascension..."

» In The Passion of Older Women, poet Louise Runyon explores passion in its myriad manifestations, in language that is both sensual and precise. She shares her passion for the natural world, for the human world, her political passion and her passion for creative work – and does so with an ever-seeking and capacious heart. These poems are grounded in the body and in the difficult world we inhabit, in memory and in a vision of growing older that reckons not only with loss but with desire, ongoing and flourishing. These poems are smart and funny and generous and strong – like the poet, one suspects, who pays homage here to the extraordinary women she has known and to her own singular life.

About The Clearing

Based in archetype, mythos, and a panoply of forms, the poems in this book explore the concept of “clearing” in many contexts and on many levels – personal, geographical, spiritual, individual and communal. Included in this book is "Petunias in the Window", a story for children and adults about a mother’s 42-year struggle to save her New York City apartment building from demolition. The story includes artwork by Suzanne Clements.

Praise for The Clearing

» From the first lines of The Clearing, Louise Runyon invites us into her life. “She had been told of a clearing;/ and told that although she had been/ in a dense forest for a long time,/ she had come now/ to a clearing space.” I immediately connected with the idea of seeking clarity in a complex world, and was ready for the journey. Runyon has written poems and stories that resonate with emotional connections to home, loss, hope, love, and leaving. Her words are the language of geometry, dreams, memory, and the land. Her language reinforces the idea of a clearing – it is precise and entirely comprehensible. Runyon has taken the concept of “clearing” and created a universe of meaning, meaning that is both personal and universal.

Praise for LANDSCAPE / Fear & Love

» LANDSCAPE / Fear & Love — what a treasure!

» These poems paint not only the skin, but the muscle and bones of the world and of a life. To read them is to feel through your feet the hidden rugged forces from which emerges the apparent, and to see the forces of movement in that which we mistake for eternal.

» The poems in LANDSCAPE / Fear & Love take me places that I do not expect to go — they are surprising, and take me on journeys large and small. I feel compelled to read them over and over again as layers continue to reveal themselves to me. I gave this book to 20 of my friends and family for Christmas!

Honor for LANDSCAPE / Fear & Love

About Reborn

Praise for Reborn

» Louise Runyon proves that her body is not the only thing that is lithe and graceful. Her poetry ebbs and flows and takes the reader on an emotional journey from her days as a steel mill worker, a dancer, a mother and beyond. Her words capture a life in motion and a life that continues to evolve. Reborn is a splendid tango of words and thoughts, urging everyone to join the dance.

Praise for Runyon’s Poetry

» There is absolutely no pretense about [Runyon’s] art… She reads aloud with humor, wit and grace as she moves about a self-styled stage freely, confidently… Runyon is an artistic force to be reckoned with, a woman of substance.

» As fluid as any dance movement, Reborn is a body of free-verse prose poems that is confidently recommended to any and all poetry enthusiasts… Also very highly recommended and memorable reading is Louise Morgan Runyon's latest volume of published poetry, LANDSCAPE: Fear & Love.

» Runyon reads as if words were dance movements flowing from her open heart.

Sample Poem from Where Is Our Prague Spring?

where is the tango, the close embrace, so far gone now
where is the waltz, traveling in tandem, the Cajun two-step
its complicated wrapping of the arms around each other’s waists
where is the rolling around on the floor with other dancers
the taking of someone’s full weight over my back
the lifting / the flying / the tumbling
the puppy pile of humans – that dance
where is my 25-year marriage
when was the last time
I was touched

where are the faces, the mouths, the noses, the chins –
except for my son’s, or someone’s on the other side of the street
gone, say their names

where is the face behind the mask
beneath the hat, the sunglasses, the face shield
I forget to look into anyone’s eyes, if they are wearing a mask
whose face can I see now? except on the Zoom screen
and there is no eye contact there

where is the holding of hands
the touching of cheeks
the common breath?

where is our Prague Spring, our Dubček?
that flowering of art and government
of commonality and uniqueness
that was so brutally crushed
but that happened

I was there, on the other side, in the Soviet Union, in 1968
in those small hours of the morning before we flew out of Kiev
we heard Soviet planes all night long, what was that about?
arriving in Vienna we found out – people escaped
from Czechoslovakia strapped to the undersides of rail cars
it would be 1989 before a new flowering there
the Velvet Revolution

where is our Velvet Revolution, our Prague Spring?
or as in Estonia, our Singing Revolution?
where is our Enlightenment, our Age of Science, our Renaissance?
our Age of Reason, our golden era?

in this strange age
I live in a fishbowl house of fog
on humid mornings, as mornings here almost all are
the bare trees of winter extend their black limbs
through the silvery fogscape

on the rare dry mornings, the brown mountains
can be seen as the sun rises, shedding light
on the few remaining red leaves

the wild turkeys that cross my path
eleven of them, moving so slowly
fully grown, their browns and reds and greens
and maybe blues, are muted in the woods
it is almost Thanksgiving Day
these eleven hopefully
will survive

at any time of day, one may hear
shooting in the woods

I have to ignore it –
oh, that

Sample Poems from The Passion of Older Women

black lace-up old lady shoes

Miss Ruddy, Miss Anne G. Ruddy
my elementary school principal
ancient and tall at 55? 58?
tight brown curls, stern
in her black lace-up old lady shoes
like my grandmother’s
with thick chunky heels and solid round toes,
which my great-aunt Evelyn also wore,
striding around, that grand figure
sailing, sprightly, tall

those shoes synonymous with sixty
no longer to be found
too bad!

at sixty-five I wear Nikes
with bubble-gum-pink soles
bubble-gum pink trim
and mint-green Nike logo streak
I wear red REI sandals, comfy but hip
dashing, downright sassy

65 is my whole world right now,
round as the moon, the sun
still I am a hipster, I read and relish
the book of a 41-year old pilot
about flying

– and yet –

I hold those “old lady shoes” in my heart
their thick chunky heels
their solid round toes
as solid as the roundness of my heart
as round as the big fat red
blood moon


I can get old if I want to

I can get old if I want to
I can get decrepit if I want to
I can become wizened
I can become wise

I don’t have to keep up appearances
I don’t have to live to be 102, like my mother
I don’t have to live forever
if I don’t want to

I can take a break if I want to
I can stop and rest

this is hard for me, but I can do it
if I want to

I can stop swimming if I want to
I can not dance, if I don’t want to
I have a reputation but I don’t have to uphold it
if I don’t want to

I’m extremely health-conscious, yes
I take very good care of myself
except for not stopping
but still, I can get old if I want to

I can get skin cancer if I want to
chickens can come home to roost
I can get some other kind of cancer if I want to
but I don’t want to

I can walk down by the river if I want to
I can find god if I want
I can behold the mountains from my own front porch
if I want to

I want to


Backpack Bebop

I had a dream the other morning
that I carried a man in my backpack
the green backpack I always take hiking
and to New York and everywhere
the one with the little red cross
Swiss army knife logo on it
green grow the rushes oh

I carried the man in my backpack
down a gray concrete sidewalk
on Peachtree Street near Peachtree Center
into a building that had glass walls
and there I let him out
he was no one I knew, really
smallish, but still a grown man
my age, with silver hair
green grow the rushes oh

he might have been a former student of mine
laughing and with a silver beard
blue jeans and vest and gold-rimmed glasses
he folded nicely into my backpack
his arms around his knees
and wasn’t too heavy for me, at all
green grow the rushes
oh

Sample Poem from The Clearing

Medlock School Powwow, 1988

Sample Poem from LANDSCAPE / Fear & Love

The Geology of New York

Sample Poem from Reborn

My Steel Mill Baby

When you were born
I was a steelworker.

I carried you in my belly
to the edge
of twenty-three hundred degree
orange/white hot pits.

In your first three,
most formative fetal months
I worked sometimes twelve hours
in twenty degree cold.

I had to walk home one icy morning
after twelve hours –
my car couldn’t get up the hill
I slipped and fell, pulling my neck
I didn’t even know
you were in me.

We always worked twelve
when it was below freezing –
so the mill wouldn’t freeze –
there were no walls
only a ceiling
five stories high.

When you were two
your mama quit
you’ll grow up knowing your mama
as a dancer and a poet.

But there’s steel in those poems
and those dances
and a little steel
in you.

Where Is Our Prague Spring? Cover Photos: Lucas Barth
Where Is Our Prague Spring? Cover Design: Yvonne Bradford

The Passion of Older Women Front Cover Photo: Neil Dent
The Passion of Older Women Cover Design: Yvonne Bradford