Nola Garrett

Nola Garrett is a Pittsburgh poet who taught literature and writing for many years at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. Her books include a collection of sestinas The Dynamite Maker’s Mistress (2009), and The Pastor’s Wife Considers Pinball (2013). In this latter collection she has created the persona of the pastor’s wife, whom she imagines as seperate from herself, and yet in relationship with her. Mayapple Press released Garrett's Ledge: New & Selected Poems in 2016.

She is one of the poets whose work appears in Taking Root in the Heart (2023, Paraclete Press) ― a new anthology, of poets whose work has appeared in The Christian Century, edited by Jill Peláez Baumgaertner. Some of the other featured poets include Brett Foster, Julie L. Moore, Luci Shaw, and Anya Silver.

Nola Garrett has also translated Macedonian poetry, along with her daughter-in-law Natasha Garrett.

The Pastor’s Wife and I

The pastor’s wife does not go out to play.
Outside it is Tuesday—merciless and far
from Sunday. She is all righteous carrots
and earnest potatoes. Sometimes she hurts
me with her notions, makes my shoulders droop,
reminds me that Nola’s dreams are a troupe
of untrained monkeys. She recycles
my prayers, drags me away from dark angels.
But, when her hair grew prim and gray, I made
her dye it brown. Then, she chose our second husband,
a good man given to chills—him, I seduced.
Now, like a gun, she holds her watch
to my ear, forces me to write these poems.
It was I who fed her those wild greens,
a salad cut from the last of my pagan
garden’s rue. Her mouth burns
for benedictions and shooting stars.
Into my mirror she stares, worries
I might disappear—her feral woman—
the woman who met Christ at the well.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Cascade) ― a book of poems written from the point-of-view of angels. His books are available through Wipf & Stock.

Anya Krugovoy Silver*

Anya Krugovoy Silver (1968—2018) is a prolific poet, perhaps best known for writing boldly and honestly about her battle with inflammatory breast cancer. She was recently named a Guggenheim fellow for poetry for 2018. I was informed of her death last week, within the first 24 hours. I still feel shock, as she had just been sharing with me about various projects she was working on — including a review of my anthology, Adam, Eve, & the Riders of the Apocalypse, and a new poetry collection.

She participated in the Poiema Poetry reading at the Festival of Faith & Writing in Grand Rapids in April, as pictured below, and will be very missed by the circle of fine poets — including Julie Moore, Barbara Crooker, Tania Runyan, and Marjorie Maddox — who count her as a friend.

The following poem is from her fourth and most-recent book, Second Bloom, which I am honoured to have edited for the Poiema Poetry Series (Cascade Books).

Fourth Advent

On Sunday, I lie beside a friend in bed,
weeping, because she doesn’t want a better place.
How bleak the next life to her grieving sons,
who need their mother here, on earth—
her silly wigs, her marathons, her fingers
deftly pinching dumplings for the feast.
For our sins, it’s said that Christ was born.
The manger’s set up in the church,
my friend sleeps through her steroid pills.
The nights grow still. We wait, Emmanuel.
Merciful one, begotten of woman, understand
how difficult it is to trust that you are kind.

Here is Anya's obituary from Friday's New York Times.

*This is the third Kingdom Poets post about Anya Krugovoy Silver: first post, second post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His latest poetry collection is Ampersand (2018, Cascade). His books are available through Amazon, and Wipf & Stock, including the anthologies The Turning Aside, and Adam, Eve, & the Riders of the Apocalypse.

Julie L. Moore*

Julie L. Moore is Associate Professor of English, and the Writing Center Director at Taylor University in Indiana. Her life has recently gone through major changes — a move from Cedarville University in Ohio to Taylor, and more significantly the dissolution of a marriage she was completely committed to. Such an experience naturally impacts the voice of the poet in her new collection, Full Worm Moon. Moore is daring; she's unafraid to share her experience of the darkness, and yet to find hope in the beauty and goodness still present in her life.

I have been privileged to be Julie's editor for both Full Worm Moon, and her previous collection, Particular Scandals, both of which are part of the Poiema Poetry Series (Cascade Books). I am also pleased to have included her poems in both of my recent anthologies — The Turning Aside, and Adam, Eve, & the Riders of the Apocalypse. All of these books are available through Wipf & Stock.

Anya Krugovoy Silver reflects on this new collection: “‘What if the beautiful day is over?’ wonders Julie Moore in her shattering new collection, Full Worm Moon. And indeed, poems about the end of a marriage wring the reader. . . Amidst the world’s disarray, Moore’s playful wit and exultant language ultimately proclaim the persistence of tenderness, peace, and love.”

The following poem is from Full Worm Moon.

Compline

St. Meinrad Archabbey

Forgive me my faults, my faults, my grievous faults,
she recites with the Benedictines preparing
for evening’s darkening shroud—

her husband’s figure standing erect
in her memory, his finger pointing at her,
threatening her, his once-sure vows

now dead, their hazy specters
prowling the hallways of her heart,
their long fingernails raking its walls.

While she chants—words, just words,
& barely sung—the Lord’s Prayer
stumbles onto her tongue: forgive us our trespasses,

as we forgive those who trespass against us.
Not even an hour, nor is it sweet,
this prayer that arrests her,

exorcising the ghosts of promises past,
their furious, furious haunting.

Posted with permission of the poet.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Julie L. Moore: first post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His latest poetry collection is Ampersand (2018, Cascade). His books are available through Amazon, and Wipf & Stock, including the anthologies The Turning Aside, and Adam, Eve, & the Riders of the Apocalypse.

Julie L. Moore

Julie L. Moore is an Ohio poet with two full-length collections to her credit — Slipping Out of Bloom (2010) and Particular Scandals (2013) which is part of The Poiema Poetry Series from Cascade Books. Her poems have appeared in over 100 publications, and she is the recipient of many awards, including the Paul Mariani Scholarship for Excellence in Poetry from Image’s Glen Workshop. She is the Writing Center Director and an Associate Professor of English at Cedarville University in Ohio.

Jeanne Murray Walker said of Julie L. Moore’s earlier collection: “Her poetry refrains from overstatement and extravagant gesture. It delineates many subtle colors on the palette of human suffering and faithfully documents nuances of joy.” This same strength was clear to me when I received the manuscript for Particular Scandals. I was immediately drawn in, poem after poem, and knew I wanted to include it in the Poiema Poetry Series.

The following poem is from Particular Scandals, and was the 2008 winner of the Janet B. McCabe Poetry Prize from Ruminate, as selected by Luci Shaw.

Confession

----Mark 5:24-34

And in the twelfth year, there was still
--------blood. And so many difficult degrees

of separation. Everything, at this point,
--------burned. The once-soft skin of her labia.

The pathetic pulp of her womb.
--------And the mass of hard questions.

Pressing on her like the crowds
--------bearing down on him.

She knew the rules: Keep your hands
--------to yourself. Whatever you touch you foul.

But she reached for him anyway.
--------Fastened her un-

clean fingers, tipped
--------with outrageous nerve,

onto the lip of his cloak.
--------While he sensed the tug

of the siphon, the precious liquid of his power
--------tapped, she felt her river of red

drain, the fierce spear of her pain
--------withdraw.

He wanted to know who grasped
--------such scandalous and particular

faith. Never again would she soil
--------a place where she lay. So she fell

at his feet. Confessed.

Posted with permission of the poet.

This is the first Kingdom Poets post about Julie L. Moore: second post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the award-winning author of the poetry collections Poiema (Wipf & Stock) and So The Moon Would Not Be Swallowed (Rubicon Press). They are both available at: www.dsmartin.ca