Christine Kendall will read from her poetry collection some time in April.
By Don Nelson
Methow Valley poet Christine M. Kendall has published a collection of her works, “Resting in the Familiar,” which is available at Trail’s End Bookstore in Winthrop.
“Resting in the Familiar” includes poems that have been previously published elsewhere, and some seeing print for the first time, Kendall said in an interview last week. Most of the poems were produced in the past five years or so, she said, adding that “I’ve been writing poetry for a long time.”
“Resting in the Familiar” is available at Trail’s End Bookstore in Winthrop and Village Books in Fairhaven.
“It was time to pull them together in one place,” Kendall said.
The collection includes poems that were included in the 2014 Methow Valley News publication, “Trial by Fire.” Kendall’s works have also been published in Clover: A Literary Rag; Windfall: A Journal of Poetry of Place; Whatcom Writes! One Book Together; Noisy Water: Poetry from Whatcom County; and other publications.
The 144-page volume, published by the Independent Writers’ Studio Press in Bellingham, costs $14. It is also available at Village Books in Fairhaven, the historic district in Bellingham. The cover art and jacket photo of Kendall are both by her partner, Jack Kienast.
Kendall is a member of Confluence Poets, which sponsors poetry events in the valley; Write on the River; and the Independent Writers’ Studio. She has also acted in local productions at The Merc Playhouse.
Kendall praised the efforts of editor Mary Gillilan, and local writer and editor Laurelle Walsh, in helping her review the collection. “I needed other eyes on it,” she said.
Kendall described her poetry as “very personal.” She said her works are intended to encourage people to “look at their own lives, look out their windows, look at the world and pay attention.”
“Paying attention to what is directly around us is so entertaining,” she said.
Local author Peter Donahue, who wrote “Madison House,” “Clara and Merritt” and “Three Sides of Water,” commented on Kendall’s works: “This rich collection vividly evokes people and place with unembellished feeling and clarity of voice. Christine Kendall transforms the ordinary into the lyrical, one memory, one observation, one resonant detail at a time. ‘Resting in the Familiar’ is an impressive collection by a poet sure of her craft. Kendall stands in the great tradition of Evergreen State poets from Ella Higginson to Mary Barnard to Madeline DeFrees.”
Kendall said she will do readings from the collection at Trail’s End in April, on a date to be determined.
