Every first Sunday of the month, I host the poetrio events at Malaprop’s Bookstore/Cafe, a cool and vibrant independent bookstore founded in Asheville in 1982. How this works is that we invite three poets with new books out to come and read at 3 p.m, then sell the books and have a good time.
In January this year, Brit Washburn, Katie Bowler Young and Jennifer Sperry Steinorth shared their poetry with us. Here’s what I garnered from their books:
Through Water with Ease–Katie Bowler Young
Katie’s poems call us to attention, to notice the visible world, what’s real and leaving (sometimes cleaving). The poet urges us to be brave as we bear witness to the disasters that shake us to the core but not the faith we keep and practice, not the memories of what is, what remains; in other words–Love–of home, people and place–that which makes the ordinary, extraordinary.
Notwithstanding–Brit Washburn
Brit’s poems reveal a poet that’s deeply attuned to the world within and around her. She has a sensuous intelligence that lends her poems a comforting texture, even amidst the scars and bruises. A persisting grace attends to the poems in all the beautiful and trying moments. We find joy instead of condemnation, as we’re invited to take our eyes away from the closed doors in order to behold what’s opening.
A Wake with Nine Shades–Jennifer Sperry Steinorth
Jennifer’s poems reveal what a mind that’s estranged from sleep is like in its active, awake, and yet, trancelike state. The mind searches for what might look like a road on a nightmarish journey, perhaps a leap of faith or a naming to break the darkness that’s also a blindness–a fear that wears many faces to disguise a vital spirit that must fight to survive.
You can find all these books at Malaprop’s. Enjoy.
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