"Day Job" + Poem = A Winner ... in Lit Shark Magazine's "The Best of 2024 Anthology"

Where do poems come from? Each one comes differently for me. My "day job" is copyediting articles and books written by other people, often in the sciences, and one day I noticed some writing about resilience in nature -- how it happens, how to plan for it as you work with your yard or woodlot or forest. 

It sounded good, but I was having a tough time that day on the personal side, really missing my late husband Dave and the way two people do things so much differently from one alone. So I felt a bit skeptical about "resilience." And maybe a little guilty, too, because I don't want to feel sorry for myself. Dave and I had a great "run" of 17 years and there are plenty of great memories. Plus I grew into a different kind of person through that marriage and his constant curiosity and encouragement.

So the poem became both a talking-back to the article, and another bit of the grief process. Lit Shark Magazine's editor chose it to be one of the Poem of the Month group last summer, and she also pulled it into this year-end anthology.

 

Then the editor had the notion of asking for an "old" poem from each of her poets, to add to the anthology -- actually she asked for three so she could pick one -- and that's how Never-Ending List also slid into the pages!

 There are such varied and tasty poems in this anthology. To pick up your own copy, here's a link to the paperback version (you'll see a hardcover is available too, for an extra $5). Let me know if you opt to buy one ... I'll be thrilled.

Book Launch, January 25, 2025: WE'VE GOT SOME THINGS TO SAY, Anthology

I have three poems in this significant anthology, and a group of the authors -- including me -- will be reading pieces in on online format when the book officially launches on January 25. If you'd like to either attend or receive a recording of the author event, please use this form to register.

Why the registration? Well, it's a tough topic -- sexual violence -- and for many of us, it's going to be a bit scary to read aloud what we've put onto paper. So this helps the experience to be a bit reassuring.

I hope you may want to listen. I appreciate that! And if instead you're feeling as shy about the topic as I often do, maybe you'd rather just order a copy to browse in a peaceful moment. Here's the link for both the softcover and the ebook. Thanks for thinking this over.

Poems Published in 2024: Three in a Significant New Anthology

 These are not comfortable poems, but I hope they are strong ones. And I feel enormously honored that they were chosen for the new anthology WE'VE GOT SOME THINGS TO SAY, edited by Mary Simmerling, PhD. Her work in gathering together creative writing that un-hides sexual danger and violence is a gift to all those who've been silenced by others -- and by themselves.

I'm posting images of my own poems here, so you can take a quick look, but I hope you may decide to purchase your own copy of the full anthology, available as softcover or ebook here.

There will also be a reading in January from many of the authors; I'll post about it when it gets closer.

Two Poems Recently Published -- Four More "Accepted for Publication"

A poem begins like a wild apple growing -- from a delicate blossom that's around briefly.

 

A good day for me is when I write a poem that I feel is -- yes, good. It's also nice to have them published. That's the whipped cream on the hot fudge brownie sundae. Or, with the upcoming Caledonia County Fair and the Robillard family's historic gifts in mind, the vanilla ice cream on the apple crisp.

If you haven't taken time to follow the links that I place on Facebook, here are the two most recent published poems of mine. I hope they echo in your thoughts to something vital of your own.

In the summer issue of New Feathers Anthology, which I hope you'll visit by tapping here to see the amazing image they've paired with this, is "My Mother, 1937."

My Mother, 1937

 

Bewildered farm girl with a dying mother (cancer, too late):

ignored, she clung to Lucky Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight,

hoarded newspaper articles about Amelia Earhardt,

refused to beg her cocky cousins for attention—

she could claim the future, sky high, better than theirs. When

death landed as predicted, love retreated into

the unreal hardness of one frozen knuckle (they made her

kiss it). Amelia, she told herself. Amelia would do this

without falling. Her cousins watched, whispered.

 

Amelia, a borrowed badge, a resonant insistence. Next month

her father said “Your mother’s cousin Ruth arrives on Tuesday,

to be your new mother.” Thrust a photo into her hand. That night

she lay sleepless in the bed, next to where her real mother

used to sit, stroke her hair, sing good night. The next evening

the radio hissed, coughed, spat out news: Earhardt lost. Airplane

vanished. Fog. Feared drowned. Lost, lost, lost.

“Stepmother” came just like Hansel and Gretel’s story, strict, tall,

declining soft clothes or embraces. Never call her Mommy!

Be a lady, little Joan. No more running or jumping. No lady wears

goggles or a helmet. Gloves are for Sundays. Not air controls.

 

Each night, after dark, her heart and mind refused to behave.

Flying, falling, weeping.

 

BK

 

This will also be available in print! Watch for news of that.

 

There's a very different poem in After Happy Hours Review, inspired by the gift of a 3-inch wooden box with hinged lid that contains three sand dollars. (Thank you, neighbors!) It keys in with a very dangerous experience I've described in my memoir pieces on Medium, where someone I now call The Villain hoped to terrify me on a small boat out in Casco Bay, Maine. It was quite effective but not as quickly as he wanted. Well, we all make some bad choices, and learn from them to make better ones.

 

 

Sand Dollars in a Small Wooden Box 

 

This is wealth: three delicate sand dollars, gray, pale,

tucked in a tiny wooden box. Souvenirs of a friend’s

beach rambles. Surfaces shedding fine gold-gray sand

with every touch. See, she whispered, here is the mouth

centered within the five-petaled surface. And here,

the anus. Algae in, remainders out. I, who never held

a live sand dollar, never witnessed one propel itself

through wet sand,  spurting, spined, moist, stroked again

the rough emery finish, the grained surface, and settled these

(three, for luck or love) into their container.

 

The mind, they say, is a curious thing; the brain, surely so.

Wet, questioning, curled in its own tidal pool, saltwater

and moon collaborating. My fingers are sliced open by a net

of knowledge; dampen my morning with dreamy details.

In its dry casket, a sand dollar is a skeleton of a sea urchin

bereft of nourishment and moisture. Of impulse. It had spines.

It digested. It explored, left larvae, expelled exhilaration

plucking a single note of life, life, life. Hunger accompanies

harmony. Lift this to the tongue. The sand dollar tastes of

salt and secrets. See, here is my mouth. Lost on a raw

Atlantic beach, say in Maine, where cold winds rip

and the surge of water overwhelms, I screamed. Once,

someone tried to drown me. Now my fingers, five parts

scratching and scrabbling, spread like the sand dollar—

scrape at the sand, scramble toward skeletal certainty.

When I’m finished, I’ll wait in that little wooden box.

 

BK

 

If you like to listen to a poet's voice with the words, tap here for the read-aloud version. 

 

And oh yes, I have four more "accepted for publication" in the future. That's like, umm, homemade chocolate chip cookies waiting in the freezer for a special moment.

At the Caledonia County Fair ...

  

Combining Vermont, Love, Loss, and Literary -- It's Been a Big Poetry Month

My short haircut from Dec. 2017, when I didn't know whether breast cancer surgery and treatment might make it too hard to wash and brush my longer (and increasingly silvered) curls.

 

As a person with decades in recovery from alcohol abuse (it's a long time ago now, but I have no intention of picking up a "first drink" even though time has passed), I'm especially impressed with the online literary magazine Anti-Heroin Chic. It's an "anti-drug addiction safe space" where writers can express pain ... and of course, relief. So I'm touched and honored that the winter issue features two of my poems: "From Nails to Screws" reflects part of the journey I've made to set aside my Dad's well-meant but very dangerous instructions for life as a woman. And "In the Very Air" brings you first to Harvey's Lake in Barnet, Vermont, where I finished raising my sons, and then to my front porch "now" -- the place where I can see both the land's beauty and the tragedy of climate change. 

Here's the link to those two poems.

Another online magazine that's become a favorite of mine is Persimmon Tree, which offers space especially to older women writers. You can find my poem "Breast Cancer, 5 Years After," which is pretty fierce -- click here and scroll down quite a ways, browsing other intriguing work along the way.

The winter issue of Persimmon Tree also includes a "likes/dislikes" list of mine, in the fashion launched by Susan Sontag. Because there are a lot of those, they are being rotated day by day, so if you don't see my list when you first click here, take a look at some other time. Or, if you don't have time to visit twice ... here you go, without the attractive graphics of the magazine:

Things I like: hard rain on the roof, new snow, bonfires, fresh cinnamon, pillowcases, signed books, watercolors, chipmunks, Star Wars music, double rainbows, nickels, dark chocolate, globes, rowboats, comb honey, toast.
 
Things I dislike: an empty mailbox, stale mushrooms, herbicides, crumbs in bed, pigs, cheap cheesecake, splinters, garlic before breakfast, collapsed barns, diesel fumes, hammers, nylon petticoats, socks that slide down, malice.

 

**

 

This month also includes publication of "Crossing Over the Moose," as an honorable mention by Raw Earth Ink and therefore included in The 2023 Northwind Treasury, an anthology coming from Alaska. I'll post a photo when my copy arrives!

 

I've also settled into writing about one segment per week for my "story of my life" (aka memoir), on the platform Medium. You should be able to see a few of these chapters when you first visit; after a bit, Medium will ask you to subscribe to the platform. That will give you access to thousands of authors, and you'll recognize many of their names right away -- as well as getting acquainted with rising stars of the literary world.

 

Now I've got to get back to some holiday baking. May your browsing give you a break from your own stresses, and maybe some hope and pleasure as you go. 

 

Recently Published Poems, Stories, More

Rise Up Review, winter 2022 issue, "Psalm for Gaza."

Medium Day tutorial video on writing novels (and more): Make a Promise In Your First Chapter. 

Persimmon Tree, poem, "Forget-Me-Nots."

Written Tales Magazine, poem, "Storm Surge."

RitualWell, poem, "Ten Plagues Sestina." 

Gyroscope Review, winter 2023, poem, "Letter from This Morning's Burdock Plant."

Lilith Magazine, Feb. 2022, "Knit. Purl. Repeat."

Journal of Radical Wonder, "Rescuing the Abandoned Property in Vermont."

Lilith Magazine, "Mythic Under the Radiation's Red Eye."

Mystery and thriller reviews being added steadily at New York Journal of Books.

Poem Published Today at Written Tales: STORM SURGE

 

Here's the link to the dramatic presentation at Written Tales: click here.

Storm Surge [published on Written Tales 5-30-23]

by Beth Kanell

 

First comes the wind, and then torrential rain—

there was no “eye” of peace, no silent space

but driven loss (one death) and pounding pain.

 

Why should I think I’d heal back, whole again

when half my hopes were his, his smile, his face,

gone with the roaring wind, the wrenching rain

 

and now these flooded fields that cannot drain.

My friend said, “Get a dog, expect new grace!”

But in her dark eyes, loss; trust pounds like pain.

 

He loved me as I am. That love’s a chain,

my anchor in this storm-soaked, battered place.

His life’s blown past like wind, like salted rain.

 

When healing comes, it’s tentative and plain,

a tender scar, a tentative new base—

as if a second life could lurch from pain!

 

Adopt the dog, and bonding close again

turns out to hold a storm surge that will race

and flood: Such wind may scream, such chilled rain:

This dog insists on love. Now comes more pain.

 

"All That Glitters" Leaps to Life on Inkshares Publisher

I'm thrilled to see my teen sleuth novel ALL THAT GLITTERS available on the new publishing platform Inkshares. Click here to start reading for free! 

Whenever I chat with people about mysteries from childhood, Nancy Drew comes into the conversation. Love her or not, she's iconic, the teen sleuth who solves mysteries with her two "chums" Bess and George.

I wanted to see what Nancy Drew would be like if she lived in Vermont -- today!

The story takes place in Montpelier, after Felicity "Lucky" Franklin races home from college to help her mom. Lucky's dad has been shot, and Lucky's mom got arrested on suspicion of murder. Although Lucky quickly helps her mom to "lawyer up" and get released (the evidence is clear!), there's still someone threatening to injure her family and finish off her dad.

Is it the city's added taxes or the effect of marijuana for sale? How can Lucky and her friends solve the case -- and will they have to call in Roger, Lucky's ex-boyfriend? Wow, a special risk in doing that ...

Hope you'll click on this link to Inkshares and read along. It's free and easy to read the whole book on the website (press the READ button). Better yet, pre-order a copy.

Inkshares promises that when we reach 750 pre-orders for the book, it will be released as both a paperback and an e-book. Help it reach this goal and get your own first edition this way!

More stories about the book and Lucky Franklin in the coming days. Thanks for checking in!