We Are The Ancestors
Music by Gabriel Walker
Lee Pennington is the author of 23 books including I Knew a Woman (1977) Thigmotropism (1993) and Appalachian Newground (2016)–each nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in poetry. His book, Daughters of Leda (2017) was selected as a finalist for “Best Book of Poetry published in 2017” by the American Book Fest. His Songs of Bloody Harlan was reprinted and re-released in 2019. His most recent book (2019) is Segovia’s Fingernail. He has had over 1300 poem published in more than 300 magazines in America and abroad. He has had nine plays produced, wrote the script for The Moonshine War (MGM, 1970, starring Alan Alda, Richard Widmark, etc.), and has published thousands of articles and short stories in everything from Playgirl to Mountain Life and Work.
Since 1990, through his video production company, JoLe Productions (joleproductions.com), Lee, along with his late wife, Joy, produced 21 documentaries including In Search of the Mudmen (1990), Wales: History in Bondage (1995), and Secret of the Stones (1998), Eyes that Look at the Sky: The Mystery of Easter Island (2001), The Mound Builders (2001), The Serpent Fort: Solving the Mystery of Fort Mountain, Georgia (2005), Let Me Not Drown on the Waters: Fred Rydholm, Michigan’s “Mr. Copper.” Since 2011, Lee has produced five more documentaries: Some Days You Clean, Some Days You Litter: The Amazing Warner Sizemore, 2012; Room To Fly: Anne Caudill’s Album, 2013; Bosnian Pyramids Hidden History, 2015; Seafaring Strangers: Vikings in America, Part I, 2016; and Gunung Padang: Monument to Atlantis, 2017.
Lee is a graduate of Berea College in KY and the University of Iowa. He holds two Honorary Doctor degrees: Doctor of Literature from World University, and Doctor of Philosophy in Arts from The Academy of Southern Arts and Letters. He taught for nearly 40 years, the last 32 as Professor of English and creative writing at University of Kentucky Jefferson Community College until he retired in 1999.
Lee is a graduate of Berea College in KY and the University of Iowa. He holds two Honorary Doctor degrees: Doctor of Literature from World University, and Doctor of Philosophy in Arts from The Academy of Southern Arts and Letters. He taught for nearly 40 years, the last 32 as Professor of English and creative writing at University of Kentucky Jefferson Community College until he retired in 1999.
He has traveled extensively (in all the United States, in all the Canadian Provinces except two, and in 90 foreign countries). For the past dozen years, he has served as president of the Ancient Kentucke Historical Association, a group dedicated to the study and research of pre-Columbian contact in the Americas.
In 2013 the University of Louisville opened the Lee and Joy Pennington Cultural Heritage Gallery, named after Lee and his late wife. The gallery contains U of L’s most valuable works including the likes of first editions of Galileo, Copernicus, and Newton. It will house all of Lee’s writings, films, and many artifacts he’s collected traveling around the world.
He presently lives in Kratz House, a designated historic home, in Middletown, KY with his lady, Jill Baker, an artist who has illustrated several of his books.