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 poems, articles and short stories in everything from Playgirl to Mountain Life and Work. His novel, Moment of the Butterfly, is scheduled to be released by Hydra Publications in the near future.
Beginning in 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.” After Joy’s death, Lee has produced five more documentaries for a total of 26 : 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 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. In 1983, the Kentucky State Legislature named him Poet Laureate, a lifetime appointment.
He has traveled extensively (in all the United States, in all the Canadian Provinces except two, and in 96 foreign countries). For the past fifteen 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, especially Kentucky. He has visited all the continents including his final one, Antarctica in December 2022.
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.
Three films are presently in the works about Lee: one, a documentary on his life, and, two, a movie about his Harlan County, KY teaching experience where he was run out of town and had contracts taking out on his head–all because of a book of poetry his students published in 1967. The third film is a series called The Story Behind the Story of Lee Pennington had its premiere at the University of Louisville in June, and won Runner Up Award for Best Documentary at the Imaginarium Indy Film Festival. In 2022 a press focused on publishing only poetry was named after him—Pennington Press, a division of Hydra Publications. In December 2022, !Sonablast Records released his CD album, Songs of Bloody Harlan. In .2023 his Jole Productions received the Cultural Video Award from Louisville Awards Program. In 2024, the Louisville Awards Program named Jole Productions to the Cultural Video Hall of Fame. He was also selected by the Imaginarium Convention to be inducted into the 2025 Hall of Fame. His most recent honor was being Knighted and inducted into the Order of the Red Dragon. 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.
Lee Pennington’s first Pulitzer Prize Nominated work, I Knew A Woman is a beautiful exploration of love, the land, and the power of the feminine.
When Lee Pennington transferred to Berea College in the spring of 1958, the second
semester freshman was immediately was named news editor of the Pinnacle, the
student newspaper.
With way more naiveté than he needed, he was asked to go to Boone Tavern and
interview a musician who was going to give a concert at the college. Here is what Lee
remembers about the moment.
Having grown up in the head of a holler in Greenup County, KY and what I knew about
the world probably would have fit fairly easily in our water bucket. I had never heard of
Andre Segovia and simply had no idea he was already recognized, even in the fifties, as
the world’s greatest guitarist.
He invited me in and for the next 4 hours politely answered all my questions and even
permitted this mountain boy an indiscretion I cannot imagine now, and even to this day,
I carry some embarrassment when I think about it.
On the floor, in an open case, was one of the two hand-made guitars that had been
made exclusively for Segovia in Spain. I looked at Segovia and asked, “Would you mind
if I play your guitar?” I even cringe now, these 61 years later, of having asked that
question.
This gracious gentleman, without any hesitation, said, “Go ahead.” I am certain, or fairly
certain anyway, that it was the only time that “Wildwood Flower” was ever played on
Andre Segoiva’s guitar! What I am even more certain of is that this mountain boy stood
before a musical genius and received an act of kindness when that boy’s own
innocence opened the moment to such an unexpected gift.
At Berea College, when Segovia performed in the Phelps Stokes Chapel, we students
paid 35 cents to hear him. It was the most amazing concert I have ever witnessed. With
his guitar on his lap, and to a standing room only crowd in Phelps Stokes with no
amplification whatsoever, Segovia held us spell bound for a very long concert—well
over two hours. As I remember, there were nine standing ovation encores.
The memory of my encounter with Segovia was indelible.
Years later, I was thinking about that concert—what it meant to music, what it meant to
art in general, what it meant to all of us, I came up with the idea for the poem “Segovia’s
Fingernail.” I wanted to tell about two kinds of people—one who was totally immersed in
art, and another who merely wanted to be seen at artsy things.
Then the idea grew. Thus, Segovia’s Fingernail, the book, was born.