The Generosity and Grace of a Nearby Poet

Poet Carlene M. Gadapee is a familiar figure to high school students in Lisbon, N.H., where she teaches both English language arts and creative writing. Students rarely know her as a poet, though -- because her poems probe topics that are mature and sometimes painful, as well as deeply personal. And while she courageously shares her writing outside the classroom, as well as leading summer poetry readings at Robert Frost's one-time home nearby (The Frost Place), she's aware that teens need to see her for her classroom presence. Not for her personal growth.

Her poetry collection Relearning the Body (2026) is published by Finishing Line Press, the same press that is bringing out my own second collection, Portrait Studio on the Ridge, this winter. So she was the first person I asked for a fellow-writer's comment for the back of my own book.

I knew it would be good -- that's how Carlene writes -- but I had no notion of how much generosity she'd pour into this. Here's her commentary:

Beth Kanell’s collection Portrait Studio on the Ridge confronts aging, death, acceptance, and ultimately, renewal. The land she speaks so lovingly about and the seasons, with all of their changes and challenges, become a form of grace in these poems. Beth is a careful, compassionate, honest, and insightful poet. As the speaker in her first poem says, “In the wilderness, you carry your own shovel; you sing out/ your loneliness,” but we are not alone when we are reading these poems; instead, we are gently led to understand that some things just require time, and that there are no easy answers, and “[e]ven God cannot reach forty without knowing/ the torn heart.”

--Carlene M. Gadapee, author of Relearning the Body

I hope that motivates you to add a copy of Carlene's book to your holiday shopping, and to pre-order one or two copies of my own, Portrait Studio on the Ridge. The publisher will release mine at the end of February (2027), which feels a long way off right now. But time will fly, especially when the Big Holidays of the Year have us in their grip. My poems may assist in finding joy and confidence in deep winter.

Here's the pre-order link. The discount is good through New Year's Day. I'm counting on you, because I want to be able to share my poems with you, the way I have with Carlene. We humans are fortunate to be here for each other, right?