Bøger af Amy Small-McKinney

Amy Small-McKinney has published two chapbooks of poetry, Body of Surrender (2004) and Clear Moon, Frost (2009), both with Finishing Line Press. Her work has appeared in numerous journals, and her poem "Nighttime, Enigma, and Nostalgia," was nominated by Switchback for the Sundress Publications' Best of the Net 2012. A nominee for the Pushcart Prize in 2004 and again in 2006, she was the 2011 Montgomery County Poet Laureate. At the 2011 Massachusetts Poetry Festival, she collaborated with women artists and poets for the project, The Poetry Dress. Founder of the program, Finding Our Voices: Poetry & Resilience, Small-McKinney uses poetry to help others, particularly those struggling with mental health, to find their voices. She lives in Blue Bell, PA with her husband, and is mother to a college student.

Even the grass grieves in Amy Small-McKinney's heart wrenchingly honest collection of deeply felt wounds and the kinds of courage needed to face such traumas. In One Day I Am a Field, Small-McKinney, whose "body is a blade", "etches absence" from what beauty remains of her shrinking world. After the loss of her husband, suffering incredible grief, she must find a way to honor his memory while also redefining herself. A rich testament to the power of love and the human spirit, these poems paint an intimate portrait of tragedy, tenderness, identity, and the ever-present need for empathy. Small-McKinney showcases a true talent for imbuing the smallest details with authenticity and layered meanings. Overflowing with vivid and accessible language, One Day I Am a Field is both intellectually stimulating and emotionally engaging, written with clear eyes and an open, curious heart. I dare anyone to read these poems and not be moved.- John Sibley Williams, author of As One Fire Consumes Another

Because of the dignified, restrained, and at times, stoic treatment of the subject of breast cancer, the reader of this collection, Walking Toward Cranes, finds herself in the hands of a skilled poet and an admirable human spirit. As readers, we can't help but compare our emotional lives to that of the speaker. But this speaker measures her identity by expanding metaphorical margins to include many objects in the natural universe. How is she like or not like the leaf, the maple tree, the snow? These kinds of items become iconic by the end of the book. Perhaps Small-McKinney's greatest gifts are the unexpected images in her work i.e .."..we are not maps, nothing leads us to each other," or ..".When my daughter was born, I opened into a basin, received her, cool water." How gratifying to find a collection of poems which beckons us to read and reread it, always finding new and complex layers of meaning. --Kathleen Sheeder-Bonanno, Winner of the Beatrice Hawley Award for Slamming Open the Door