Author Archives: Katie

Voices at Home: A Virtual Reading from Mom Egg Review

I’m so thrilled to be part of Voices at Home: A Virtual Reading to celebrate the release of Mom Egg Review 18! This home-themed issue contains some incredible work, and I love seeing videos of the poets reading in or just outside of their homes. Thanks to Marjorie Tesser and the rest of the MER crew for curating this beautiful journal and making space for writing by and about mothers.

The virtual reading will be up on the website for the rest of the month, so check it out! You can see me reading my poem “Hermit Crab” alongside so many poets I admire: Barbara Crooker, Iris Jamahl Dunkle, Gabrielle Brant Freeman, Jules Jacob, Jennifer Jean, Cathy McArthur, Kyle Potvin, Kimberly Ann Priest, Sarah Dickenson Snyder, Pramila Venkateswaran, and more!

 

“Dear Diary” in Golden Walkman

I wrote a poem about biological fathers and The Princess Diaries, and Amorak Huey chose it for the Parents & Children issue of Golden Walkman Magazine. This magazine is entirely audio, and they include a couple minutes of commentary from the writer after each piece, and I adore it. You can listen to the issue here. My piece begins around 10:48, but I recommend listening all the way through. I was enraptured by the other poems! (That last one gave me chills.)

“Sighting Grief” & Ruminate Happenings

Ruminate featured my cento for Marthe Reed, “Sighting Grief,” on their website today. I started creating it last year during the Ruminate Happenings, and I’ll be participating in that event again this May, which means I’ll be writing poems for people live online. If you’d like to support this magazine and have me write a poem just for you, please visit Ruminate’s website and get a ticket!

“Corona” in The San Diego Union-Tribune

I have a poem called “Corona” in today’s Sunday edition of The San Diego Union-Tribune. I’m honored to be included in my local paper, and I gasped when I saw the front page. 😍

Here’s a zoomed in version that you can read. The poem’s formatting is a bit off thanks to the skinny column: each line begins with the word “and,” and there are no spaces between lines in this poem.
Thanks to Michael Rocha for selecting my poem. I’m glad to be in this edition alongside my colleague Robbie Maakestad as well.

I’m a digital subscriber to The SDU-T, and I’ve found this paper to be a grounding source of news during this chaotic time. You can subscribe here. 

PCA 2020: Poetry Salon on Zoom

We didn’t get to present in Philadelphia this week as we’d planned, but many of us from the Poetry Studies & Creative Poetry area of the Popular Culture Association came together for a poetry salon on Zoom today, and it was so wonderful to read poems to each other and chat for a while. I always love the warmth and creative energy of this conference, and I’m so thankful that I still got to experience that today.

And now a silly one…

I hope we’ll get to be together next year in Boston!

“Pillow Talk with Pneumonia” in FEED

I wrote a poem called “Pillow Talk with Pneumonia” over the last weekend of March. I submitted it to a brand new literary magazine last week, and today it was the first poem in the first issue of FEED!

Click the image to read the full poem.

I’m so thrilled to be part of this new magazine’s launch, and I look forward to getting their weekly issues. (I’m also excited to be mostly recovered from pneumonia now!)

Stations of the Cross

If you’re looking for some artistic/interactive Stations of the Cross online today, I helped build these for my church. They’ve got some thought-provoking visual art throughout, and Stations 11 and 13 will give you prompts for writing your own poems. Station 11 also includes one of my own poems, “The Flesh Made Word” from The Gospel of the Bleeding Woman.

Blessings on you this Holy Week!

“Hermit Crab” in Mom Egg Review

I recorded my poem “Hermit Crab” that was just published in Mom Egg Review, vol. 18. I wrote it two years ago, but it feels strangely timely now.

 

Hermit Crab

The pain in my right temple
flares awake, my lower back
aches from face-down sleep,
my sprained ankle pangs
before I take a step. I long
to crawl downstairs and out
to the beach. If I could slither
my soul from this skin, I would
find a new shell to hold me,
something shiny and solid—
no cracks—something large
enough to bring my spouse
and children in, shield us
from this violent, broken world.

You can order copies of MER’s “Home” themed issue at this link. Mom Egg Review took submissions a year ago, but this issue also feels especially timely now, so check out the order link and get yourself a copy of this wonderful literary magazine (and order copies for others too!). I’m thrilled to have a poem in here alongside so many writers I admire. Thanks, Marjorie Altman Tesser, Jennifer Colella Martelli, and company!

THRUSH Virtual Reading Series

I can’t participate in or attend as many of the online poetry events as I’d like since I’m trying to be a full-time prof (newly online) and a full-time stay-at-home (homeschooling?) mom simultaneously, but I jumped at the chance to be a featured reader in the new THRUSH Virtual Reading Series on Zoom last Friday night. Thanks to Helen Vitoria for creating this salon-style reading! I started things off by sharing seven poems, and then I was enamored with the incredible poems by Sandy Marchetti, Sally Rosen Kindred, Dan Albergotti, Jennifer Colella Martelli, Rachel Patterson Moles, and Amanda Auerbach. What a life-giving experience! You can watch the whole reading on YouTube and subscribe to Helen Vitoria’s channel to catch more of these weekly THRUSH contributor readings.

“The Ghosts of Missing Animals” in SWWIM

I read a poem each morning in my inbox from SWWIM, and this morning, the poem is mine! Here is “The Ghosts of Missing Animals.”

The title comes from a sign near the old Point Loma Lighthouse at the Cabrillo National Monument. I’ve read that sign before, but it suddenly struck me in a new way when I was there with Sarah Ann Winn on her visit to San Diego, so she’s another unnamed ghost in this ghost-filled poem. <3 As with many poems over the last few years, this one is for my parents-in-law.