National Poetry Month continues and today’s poets have something in common–me! I’m very blessed to be a member of a poet community that’s wide and supportive. Sometimes that support includes the rare treat of reading a poetry manuscript before it’s published and being asked to write a blurb for the book. That was the case with both of these poets and their very different books of poetry.

This was the second time Kathie reached out to me for a blurb, and I was thrilled when she asked again. I’d followed the story of her husband’s horrific accident and eventual death in her weekly writings, so I knew these poems would be a testament to her love story with Michael. It was so much more. Here is what I wrote:

From the opening lines of Kathie Giorgio’s moving new poetry collection, The Birth of a Widow, the reader knows how the story ends, When I was here a year ago/ my husband was still alive. And yet, we hang on to every word as Kathie tells her story from the beginning. Like all births, there’s a measured and natural taking on of this new creation. The reader sees and feels this transformation; we witness the layering and releasing, the breaths of this struggle. The familiar takes on new hues when filtered through a widow’s lens, when even a lone hibiscus becoming a metaphor. Giorgio introduces us to Michael, and their love story continues even as the widow emerges.

I’ve always enjoyed Gary V. Powell’s work–both his poetry and his prose–so when he asked if I’d write a blurb for this latest collection of poetry, I didn’t hesitate to say yes. Gary has the ability to take the mundane that we all see, and make us notice what we miss. As my friend David E. Poston wrote in his review, ‘A deep and gritty reverence pervades this collection–for sweat and labor, for family, for the beauty of this dangerous world.’ Here is what I wrote:

In his opening poem, “5AM,” Gary V. Powell immediately grounds us in the senses with images ‘…sharp as knives.’ The poems in The Largesse of the Maidenhair Fern “…[hold] the blood and skin/gristle and bone/where sunlight cannot reach.” Yet Powell reaches and exposes them in factories and Corvettes, in love and in letting go. And “… by these acts [by these very poems, he] … honored the value/of that which could not be replaced.

The Birth of a Widow can be purchased from Kelsay Books

The Largesse of the Maidenhair Fern can be purchased from Main Street Rag Enterprises

Both Kathie and Gary show us that poetry arises from the deeply felt emotions of life, as well as the memories of first summer jobs. Anything and everything is grist for the mill. Next week’s poets will show even more. Have a wonderful weekend!