Hello from Kathleen Kirk, Poetry Editor

Hello! I’m Kathleen Kirk, serving as the poetry editor for Escape Into Life. I’ve been posting the Poetry features for a little over a year now, starting with Sarah J. Sloat. The joy of my job is scouting poets, just as our art editors scout out artists for the Artist Watch features, and then pairing up poems and images in interesting ways.

Before me, Mark Kerstetter, a wonderful poet and blogger himself, was the poetry editor. And founding editor Chris Al-Aswad sought out poets, too, asking me for some poems when my last chapbook was coming out, so I continue the practice of sometimes introducing you to poets’ new books in our poetry features here, as you’ll see below!

Shortly thereafter, Chris asked for editorial help. I was happy to come on board (as long as he could help me with the technology. Sigh…. Thanks to ALL the EIL editors who have helped me with this!) Now that we have a blog, I plan to post poetry-related blog entries every other Wednesday, in between the regular single-poet Wednesday features. Mini-articles, mini-reviews, guest bloggers, and…good news!

For instance, Sarah J. Sloat has a new book out! Take a look at her chapbook, Excuse me while I wring this long swim out of my hair, just out from dancing girl press. (Cover art by Emmanuel Polanco, who was also the artist for her EIL feature and for her first chapbook, In the Voice of a Minor Saint, from Tilt Press.)

Next week’s featured poet, Jeannine Hall Gailey, has a new book out, too. You’ll get to see a poem from She Returns to the Floating World, and a few more!

I hope you’ll enjoy the variety of poetry here at Escape Into Life—we have poets of all ages, all styles, all writing in English but living in various places in the world. Poets from all over the U.S. but also some in Australia, Europe, and Mexico. Lyric poets, prose poets, experimental poets.

We’d love to have you comment on poets/poems at the features themselves, and on general poetry issues and trends here at the blog. To comment on the images at a poetry feature, click the artist’s name to be taken to the artist’s feature. To contact me more directly, email me at Kathleen[at]escapeintolife.com.

So feel free to ask questions, suggest blog topics, and join the conversation!

Kathleen Kirk is the author of four poetry chapbooks: Selected Roles (Moon Journal Press, 2006), Broken Sonnets (Finishing Line Press, 2009), Living on the Earth (Finishing Line Press, 2010, New Women’s Voices Series #74), and Nocturnes, forthcoming from Hyacinth Girl Press this winter. Her work appears in a variety of print and online journals, including Blue Fifth Review, Magnolia Journal, Poems & Plays, and Right Hand Pointing. A former associate editor of Poetry East and co-editor of RHINO Magazine, she is the poetry editor for Escape Into Life. She blogs about reading, poetry, and life “eight days a week” at Wait! I Have a Blog?!