Author: Kay Kennett

I hold a Bachelor’s degree in English and Women’s & Gender Studies from Wheaton College (MA). There, I published several poems in the campus literary magazine, Rushlight, performed in poetry readings and slams, and won the Helen Meyers Tate Memorial Prize for Original Verse. Additionally, I published in the online magazines Curbside Splendor and Atticus Review. In my early adult life, I have not pursued creative writing professionally, but rather landed in the field of Marketing & Communications, writing outreach and educational content for nonprofit organizations and schools. I am very involved in civic and community activities, particularly within Education and the Arts. I currently teach enrichment classes to K-5 students, tutor high school students in English/Language Arts, and manage social media and email marketing for a handful of nonprofit and small business clients. Find my full worker identity at LinkedIn. Some other identities that are important to me: only child, child of a single father, working class, tenth-generation (New England) American, first-generation college graduate, living with mental illness, bisexual. Thank you for reading.

Gathering Rose Petals

October 28, 2020.Reading time less than 1 minute.

to be romantic

to steep in bath water

to float in a cupped hand

to read into

to press in a book and forget

to remember today more than other days

to remember what I like to do

to remember who I like to give rose petals to

The Sky is Falling

September 5, 2020.Reading time 2 minutes.

When the Old Man fell,
it interrupted all scheduled programming,
including Britney’s tenth birthday party,
where I was one minute
feeling

to pin the tail on the donkey,
and the next listening
for the sound
of a pin
falling.

Falling
like ashes,
ashes from the sky
in Oregon.
Fifteen years later,
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I Hope You Are Okay

May 17, 2020.Reading time 5 minutes.

I hope you are okay.

Thanks. That’s all I have to say about that. Interesting how many platitudes have an opposite impact of their intent. Interesting how “hope” can be used to mean expect. Do I have an obligation to meet your expectations? To be “beautiful, smart, talented, and funny” because those are the qualities you expect to find in the legend of a woman who overcomes. What if I spent all of eternity mourning, pacing the banks of the high-water river, pleading with it to accept another day’s tears? Would that be “okay” with you?

I Like How You Spend Your Time

May 12, 2020.Reading time 1 minute.

I like how you spend your time
breathing—
into your pelvic fire,
to help signal a feeling of release,
balancing contentment with desire,
because it is necessary for holiness.

I like how you spend your time
eating—
what makes you pucker:
green tea, Montmorency cherries;
steeling yourself for loose hunger,
and for whomever says: Yes, please.