Holly Hill Inn spotlights Silas House in fourth installment of Poetry Dinners; buffet with live music Saturday

House (Berea College photo)

Appalachian poet and award-winning author Silas House gets the spotlight in the fourth installment of Holly Hill Inn's Poetry Dinner series, which runs through Oct. 5.

House is the National Endowment for the Humanities Chair in Appalachian Studies at Berea College and the author of six novels: Clay's Quilt, A Parchment of Leaves, The Coal Tattoo, Eli the Good, Same Sun Here (co-authored with Neela Vaswani), and most recently Southernmost, which was listed for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. He has co-written a book of creative nonfiction, Something's Rising, with his husband Jason Howard; and three plays: "The Hurting Part," "This Is My Heart for You," and "In These Fields," with Sam Gleaves.

The dinner series will spotlight "Hazel Dickens," House's poem about how he cooked a meal and reflected on the 2011 death of the iconic bluegrass musician from West Virginia who was a feminist and labor-union advocate. The dinner, which does not include any poetry readings, is $35 for a three-course menu and $50 for a six-course tasting menu.

Menu for Saturday outdoor buffet

The menu, taken partly from the poem, includes sweet-potato biscuits and skillet cornbread; Whitley County soup beans with sweet onion and chow chow; pickled cucumber, onion and sliced-tomato salad; a house-smoked salmon patty; hand-pinched tomato pie; pork belly with roasted chiles, creamed corn and redeye gravy; and for dessert, "Smudge This," made of cake, peanut-butter fudge and marshmallow cream; or Alice's apple dumpling.

On Saturday, Aug. 17, the restaurant will host a special celebration of House's poetry and the music of Dickens with an outdoor buffet from 6 to 9 p.m. The Local Honeys will perform on the front porch beginning at 6:30 p.m. The price is $50. Wine and cocktails will be available. Outdoor seating is available for up to 100 people. In case of rain, it will move inside. Make a reservation by calling (859) 846-4732 or going online.