The Poetry of Transitions: What Is Poetic Language?

On Thursday July 16 at 6:30 pm in the Davies Memorial Library in Lower Waterford, Vt., I'll be chatting about my new book THRESHOLDS (from Kelsay Books) and what I call the poetry of transitions: how we talk about the significant changes in our lives. Many of those times are not simple, and some are not comfortable! 

Examples include welcoming your first baby (or grandchild); losing a parent to age or dementia; moving to a new house; taking a new job or a new position; adopting or saying farewell to a pet.

I'll share some of my poems that wrestle with these ... but I'll also open some doorways to poetic language for people who join me that evening. 

What is poetic language? The Australian Academy of the Humanities has an explanation that I like:

By drawing attention to itself, then, poetic language simultaneously talks about and revises the world that we experience, feel, and think.

Here are some sets of cards of poetic language I've made, that you'll have a chance to play with -- and see what sort of poetry comes from your own arrangement. 

Come have fun with me!

 

Coming Soon: Audiobook of THE BITTER AND THE SWEET -- Plus Nov. 20 Presentation

Almost all of my "spare" time for the past two weeks has been spent listening to a very skillful "audiobook" reader create the spoken version of THE BITTER AND THE SWEET, checking that the words move smoothly from the pages. It's taken a huge amount of time and has been fascinating. Kathy, the professional reader, clearly prepares for each chapter ahead of time, so that she's ready with separate voices for the different characters, and moments when someone "drops" their voice to keep quiet in a scene. She even inserts small chuckles of her own when they are laughing!

I am so excited about this, and grateful to All Things That Matter Press for investing in this version of the book. People often ask whether there are audio versions of my novels. Now I can give a resounding YES for this latest title. As soon as the version is available to order, I'll let you know ... it won't be much later, I think. (Locally, Boxcar & Caboose bookstore in St. Johnsbury and Green Mountain Books in Lyndonville are carrying all three books in the Winds of Freedom series, in softcover.)

In another direction, I've learned over the years to develop an engaging public presentation, and loved the way the audience connected with my talks recently, first this summer on the 1800s immigration into Barnet, Vermont, and then in September on "The Poetry of Transitions," as an approach to my poetry book THRESHOLDS that will be published in 2026 (recording here!). 

So when the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum asked me to take part in their November consideration of mysteries, of course I said yes! Here's the planned approach: the various subgenres, how mysteries are changing, the inclusion of more women and minorities as both authors and characters, and I'll provide a list of suggested authors for people to check out. Of course I'll mention THE BITTER AND THE SWEET, with a quick explanation of how I learned this region's role in counterfeiting in the 1800s. But this talk also dips deeply into the 17 years of learning the mysteries and crime fiction field with my late husband Dave Kanell, as we created Kingdom Books and traveled the United States, meeting authors and learning more.

I hope you can join me! November 20, at 7 pm, at the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum. I'll let you know if it's also recorded for viewing afterward. 

The Poetry of Transitions: A Community Conversation of Discovery

It was such a pleasure (and honor!) to recently share poems and ideas, focused around how poetry connects with transitions in life -- and to do this with a group of community members, for an enjoyable hour that also included some impulsive moments of song, and plenty of laughter and learning.

Catch up with it all here, in this recording courtesy of OLLI St. Johnsbury, Catamount Arts, and KATV community access television: https://www.katv.org/vod/osher/2025/20250925 

 

Diversion: In the New England Narrative Tradition, TREES OF NEW ENGLAND by Charles Fergus

This year's two directions for this set of essays relate to what I write: poems, and fiction set in 1850s Vermont. But sometimes I like to chat about other authors' work.

Charles Fergus first came to my attention (and that of my late husband Dave) for his book BEARS in the Wild Guide Series. Later, as we began to share research on America's 1800s for the historical fiction we both craft, we also exchanged book recommendations, especially for crime fiction and some literary work, too. 

Last year, Charles mentioned that he'd been asked by publisher Globe Pequot to prepare a new edition of his 2005 book TREES OF NEW ENGLAND: A NATURAL HISTORY. As the publication date neared, I ordered a copy so I could read it right away.

But this isn't a book to be devoured with speed. Instead, it offers a slow, comprehensive, and highly personal ramble (alphabetically) through the trees that surround and often support New England residents. There are no color images -- the book is not a field guide, this author warns at the outset -- but instead delicate and detailed black-and-white drawings from the pen of Amelia Hansen. Though I missed the familiar bright field-guide images at first, I soon discovered that between Hansen's unusual details of bark growth and leaf individuality, and Charles Fergus's meditative reflections on each tree's structure and growth, I felt more capable of identifying the trees around me, including my beloved maple sapling rescued from a backhoe and beginning to show serious growth in the front garden.

This year I've become a daily reader of excerpts from the classic American philosopher of outdoor New England, Henry David Thoreau. And that's one voice I hear in the writing in this new book -- along with others like Aldo Leopold and Louise Dickinson Rich.

Here is a sample from this Charles Fergus book: 

"I have watched ruffed grouse eating aspen buds. In the last day's light, the birds alight in a winter-bare tree. Their feathers fluffed against the cold, they clamber about on the swaying branches, using their beaks to wrench off the energy-packed buds. ... Aspen buds and catkins are favorite foods of the ruffed grouse throughout the bird's range, which largely coincides with the range of bigtooth and quaking aspen in North America."

Or in the section on yellow birch:

"Fence-row trees cast sharp shadows in the moonlight. Beneath my snowshoes the snow groaned, and when I kicked a ball of ice, it made a hollow tinkling as it rolled along the top of the crust. I crossed our hay field to where a logging road led into the woods. Trunks of maple and ash etched dark vertical lines against the snow. I was brought to a halt by another tree that presented a different aspect. Its bark was pale and burnished. Thin, ragged strips of bark curled away from the trunk, catching the moon's glow."

Will you be within driving distance of Lyndonville, Vermont, on October 2? As the poster here shows, there's a great opportunity to meet this thoughtful and knowledgeable author at the Cobleigh Public Library there, and to hear more about his observations of the trees that surround us. 

The Poetry of Transitions: Where Do Poems Come From?

The earliest poems in my life were lullabyes and nursery rhymes, and I remember them well. In fact, I still sing them. But I've never quite gotten used to the shivery side of this one, which somehow reappeared around bedtime:

Rock-a-bye baby on the treetop.

When the wind blows, the cradle will rock.

When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall

and down will come baby, cradle and all! 

Come on, who would sing that to a baby? A baby they cared about? Well, my parents sang it to me, and somehow the melody and the arms around me took away the sting. 

On Thursday Sept. 25, I'll be leading a discussion of the Poetry of Transitions, at Catamount Arts, 115 Eastern Ave, St Johnsbury, starting at 1:30 pm. I hope you'll come and bring with you some ideas about the poetry that stays with you -- poems that are memorable -- and why and how that happens. And I'll share with you some of my ideas, as well as some poems of others and some of my own new-ish ones, and a taste of my 2026 book, THRESHOLDS.

We can figure out this puzzle! 

The Poetry of Transitions: When and Why

When I say I've been writing poems ever since I could shape the letters of the words, well, that was really my second stage. The first came as soon as I could repeat the lines my mother spoke or sang: "Jack and Jill -- went up the hill -- to fetch a pail of water," we repeated to each other. And very soon, I began to protest about that particular poem: "Mommy, water and after do NOT rhyme." 

But they almost do, and that too was something to learn.

In The Art of the Poetic Line, James Longenbach teaches that "All poems live or die on their capacity to lure us from their beginnings to their ends by a pattern of sounds." 

Reading that, more than sixty years after Mom and I began poetry together, brought all the strands together for me. California poet Ellen Bass pointed to Longenbach's book during one of her classes that I first enrolled in during the Covid pandemic. Between her lessons and the resources she listed, I found new strengths.

And now a book of my poems, THRESHOLDS, will be published in a few more months. 

Starting with an OLLI (aka Osher) talk on September 25, I'm inviting you to join me to explore the poetry of transition. After all, autumn in Vermont practically defines transition: blazing with color, gusting with northwest wind, stripping the gardens and toughening our word-winged selves for winter.

As they say: Watch this spot for more.

* 

Eve in Vermont

 

She sits on the front step

potato in her hand, peeling

turning the round cool white

and brown form, rubbing off

the traces of soil, rejoicing—

“potato, potato,” naming it.

When the bird flies past it calls

and again she says “potato” but then

she looks up, shakes her hair,

follows the angled wings in flight.

She grins and calls out “blue jay”

and it answers.