Katie's Blog

If you know me, then you know that I've made it a point of pride to avoid putting on pants for the vast majority of my spring break. However, yesterday was an exception. I ventured out of my writerly cave  (of course, wearing pants) to spend the afternoon with my fellow "chicks" to discuss future plans for our little unofficial poetry group known as "Chicks with Words." What is CWW? We SAY we're a group of three women focused on exploring and expanding the definitions of femininity through verse. In reality? We're three crazy gals who like to get together to drink coffee (or wine, depending), talk about poems (or men, depending), and laugh (always). Mary Ann, Linda and myself have been friends for awhile, but we "made it official" when we began participating in poetry readings, conferences, and events as a, well, package deal. Linda is known as "the worker," Mary Ann the "sister" and me, well, you've probably gues

Cover from Twenty Twenty : Poems in Memoriam, El Zarape Press, 2014. $10. A caveat: This isn't a review, an analysis, or an advertisement. It's simply a personal reflection on a book I had the pleasure of working on for the past year or so.  Twenty was released on Amazon today. It's a collection of poems in response to the 2012 shooting in Newtown, Connecticut at Sandy Hook Elementary School. I remember the day, hearing about the horrible shooting. I was sitting in my car, just listening to the radio, thinking, oh, another school shooting, and then the stark realization that this time it happened at an elementary school. It was a cool day, a grey sky. It was hard for me to believe this world was still a beautiful place. That night, my good friend Daniel had organized a poetry reading, and I'm so glad they decided not to cancel it, in light of the events. We met at a local BBQ shop, ate, and read poetry into a mic to the small crowd of mostly poets in the est