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Nancy Simpson's LIVING ABOVE THE FROST LINE, New and Selected Poems was published by Carolina Wren Press (N.C. Laureate Series, 2010.) She is the author of ACROSS WATER and NIGHT STUDENT, State Street Press, still available on WWW at Alibris and Books Again. Her poems have been published in Southern Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, The Georgia Review and other literary magazines. "Carolina Bluebirds" was published in THE POETS GUIDE TO THE BIRDS, Anhinga Press). "Grass" was reprinted in the 50th Anniversary Issue of Southern Poetry Review: DON'T LEAVE HUNGRY ( U.of Arkansas Press.) Seven poems were reprinted in the textbook, SOUTHERN APPALACHIAN POETRY,(McFarland.) Two poems were published in SOLO CAFE, Two more poems were published in SOLO NOVO."In the Nantahala Gorge" was published in Pisgah Review. "Studying Winter" was reprinted in Pirene's Fountain Anthology and "The Collection" in Collecting Life Anthology. Most recently, Southern Poetry Review Edited by James Smith, published "Our Great Depression," and The Southern Poetry Anthology Vol. VII: NORTH CAROLINA,Edited by William Wright, reprinted "Leaving in the Dead of Winter."

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Kathryn Kirkpatrick HAS BEEN NAMED POET OF THE MONTH OF FEBRUARY 2012. Two Poems and Bio.

Here "Above the Frost Line," Award Winning Poet, Kathryn Kirkpatrick has been named Poet of the Month for February 2012 in this her birth month.




Biography for Kathryn Kirkpatrick



Raised in the nomadic subculture of the U.S. military, Kathryn Kirkpatrick was born in Columbia, South Carolina, and grew up in the Phillipines, Germany, Texas and the Carolinas.  Today she lives with her husband, Will, and their two shelties in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, and she currently holds a dual appointment at Appalachian State University as a Professor in the English Department and the Sustainable Development Program. She has a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Studies from Emory University, where she received an Academy of American Poets poetry prize.  Her poetry collections include The Body’s Horizon (1996), which was selected by Alicia Ostriker for the Brockman-Campbell award; Beyond Reason (2004), which was awarded the Roanoke-Chowan Poetry Prize by the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association; Out of the Garden (2007), which was a finalist for the Southern Independent Booksellers Association poetry award; Unaccountable Weather (2011) recently published by Press53. 


TWO POEMS by Kathryn Kirkpatrick:



From Beyond Reason (Pecan Grove Press, 2004)
Originally published in Kalliope



FIRST AMERICAN WOMAN SOLOS IN A FIXED-WING, HEAVIER THAN AIR MACHINE, 1910



I dreamed of flying under bridges

upside-down
                    or diving swift-like toward
the rushing ground at Curtiss Field.
                                                         He says
I'm just to check the wires, guide forward
and then back across the runway,
                                                    says if
I crashed they’d blame his Pusher plane
or him.
             To teach a woman how to lift
herself from earth in this frail fabric plane
is bad enough,
                      but flight, alone, intoxicates
like drink, like money, power.
                                               So when I find
the throttle lever blocked and take
away the piece of wood,
                                     I know the price
they’ll pay, years on, to see me risk my neck,
a freak because I’m first.
                           My hands are ice.






From Out of the Garden (Mayapple Press, 2007)


First published in The Florida Review




These Things No Longer Suffice






And I was walking in Chicago

with unnecessary purchases

or rather,
            they were necessary in that intangible way



like it is necessary to see a blackcap chickadee
light on a redbud in bloom.



It was something in clay

and something in paper

and I felt a little of that glow one feels

in the sensuous and material,



shorn up and satisfied

                                    for a moment
and saying how much I’d spent
when he stepped up with his empty

cup and it felt arbitrary
as wind not rain
that he had the cup
and reached it toward me
and I had the bags
and quickened my pace.

Why he with the empty cup?
And me with the laden bags?

I know the body is a reasonable animal.
Give it pure water, good food,
nest it in sheets washed clean.
Offer a share of touch.
And beauty. Give its sight beauty,
an arch of forsythia in spring.
Anger loses its urgent beat.
The claw of want retracts.

Why he with the empty cup?
And me with the laden bags?

What once would have sufficed,
the something in paper, the something in clay,
no longer sufficed.
Joy, that fragile wing, folded.

I wanted to say, paper, clay.
Because you are without pure water, good food,
I am without my small wing of joy.

I wanted to say, paper, clay.
If my laden bags require
your empty cup,

I give them back,
I give them back.

Now where is your wing,
O where is your wing of joy?


Please leave a comment here or
send the poet a comment if you wish.


kirkpatrick@appstate.edu

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Tremendous rhythm in "These Things No Longer Suffice." Thanks for posting.

Maren O. Mitchell

Nancy Simpson said...

Maren, Thanks for stopping by the site. I appreciate your comment and I believe KK will be pleased.

Valerie Nieman said...

Wonderful poems! Thank you, Nancy, for bringing us Kathryn's work today.

Glenda beall said...

Good post with an excellent poet featured. I like the poems.

Anonymous said...

Smitten with and undone by "These Things No Longer Suffice." Gets me right there--in the gut and the heart. Reminds me of listening to Desmond Tutu this morning. Beautiful and thought provoking. Thanks for sharing this.