Poets and Poems: Katie Kalisz and "Quiet Woman"

I enjoyed reading Flu Season: Poems by Katie Kalisz, so much so that I looked at her first poetry collection, Quiet Woman. I found the same keen eye upon family and relationships that I found in her later collection.  

At the same time, her view is wider, including friends and relatives. The collection opens with the pregnant poet attending a funeral. A child, age unspecified, is in the casket, but a child who died before its mother. And she tries to imagine “the nearly grown child inside of me / dying before I did,” including the possible names of the child engraved on a gray gravestone and a memorial folder providing directions to the funeral luncheon. A later poem describes a wake for a 14-year-old girl, perhaps serving as the amplification of the funeral.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Thursday Readings

 

“Pomona,” poem by William Morris – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

The Face in the Stone – poem by David Whyte.

 

Reading Goodnight Moon – poem by Maureen Doallas.

 

The poem within the poem – Henry Oliver at The Common Reader.

 

Poet Laura: Trees, the Sea, Birds, Flowers, Poems – Donna Hilbert at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Poets and Poems: Katie Kalisz and "Flu Season"

I’m trying to remember when I last read a poetry collection that spoke so warmly and movingly of home and family, like Flu Season: Poems, does. It’s been a while, but poet Katie Kalisz has more than filled the gap in my reading.  

I learned Kalisz lives with a woodcutter, although I don’t think that’s what he does full-time. She watches him as he chops wood, describing every movement: “The spray of / sawdust looks like / confetti, the only sign / of change.” When he’s finished and comes through the door, she smells smoke and gasoline: “A little snoke. / A little danger. Bringing / him a glass of water / feels like inventing fire.” It’s a love poem, unusual to be sure, but a love poem, nonetheless. A little later, in “Anniversary Poem,” she punches the love theme home.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Tuesday Readings

 

“Tears, Idle Tears,” poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Before the Light – poem by David Whyte.

 

Is April the Cruelest Month? – Joseph Pearce at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

What Exactly Is Poetry? – Rachel Donahue at Bandersnatch Books.

 

Free E-Book + Poetry Prompt: The Year of the Monarch – Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

We Find Honey Others Miss – poem by Catherine Abbey Hodges at Every Day Poems.

 

“Redemption,” poem by George Herbert – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Seven Lenten Sonnets – Andrew Peterson at Rabbit Room Poetry.