St. Therese Catholic Church is located on Contrary Creek in Lee County, Kentucky, northwest of Beattyville. Built in 1948 it includes a kitchen and living quarters used by circuit-riding priests and missionary nuns. When Vickie Cimprich was teaching English at Lees College in adjoining Breathitt County, and on later visits, she also stayed there. These poems deal not only with the flora and fauna of Eastern Kentucky, but also the sometimes strained relationships between Catholics and Protestants here. In one poem a nun confronts anti-Catholic spectators at a ball game by suggesting, "Why don't you go to hell? They don't have any there." “Contrary-wise is an elegiac meditation on what is past, passing, and to come. Its voice is as clear and true as the creek it names.” – Joe Survant.
Frankfort, Kentucky: Broadstone Books, 2018. 61 pages. Trade paperback