Judith Kitchen – författare

Brief Encounters expands the vibrant field of shorts—as these sharply focused pieces have come to be known—with nearly eighty new selections: representing an impressive range of voices, perspectives, sensibilities and forms. From the rant to the rave, the meditation to the polemic, the confession to the valediction, this collection will enlarge your world.

THE HOUSE ON ECCLES ROAD records the events of June 16th 1999 in Dublin, Ohio. Molly and Leo Bluhm wake up together - and proceed to spend the day apart. Leo tends to his busy schedule as a college professor, Molly merely passes the time - hums Irish tunes as she does the housework, chats to neighbours and meets an old love. All too aware that it is their wedding anniversary, and that her husband has forgotten, a series of scribbled notes and telephone messages reflect Molly's frustration, as she struggles with the fact that he needs reminding at all. Meanwhile, Leo breezes through the day with a careless nonchalance, catching too late the messages left for him by his wife. In this momentous novel, Kitchen weaves these and other voices into a tapestry of a single day, an ordinary day, yet a day that might change their lives forever.

What Persists contains eighteen of the nearly fifty essays on poetry that Judith Kitchen published in The Georgia Review over a twenty-five-year span. Coming at the genre from every possible angle, this celebrated critic discusses work by older and younger poets, most American but some foreign, and many of whom were not yet part of the contemporary canon. Her essays reveal a cultural history from the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, through 9/11 and the Iraq War, and move into today’s political climate. They chronicle personal interests while they also make note of what was happening in contemporary poetry by revealing overall changes of taste, both in content and in the use of craft. Over time, they fashion a comprehensive overview of the contemporary literary scene.At its best, What Persists shows what a wide range of poetry is being written—by women, men, poets who celebrate their ethnicity, poets who show a fierce individualism, poets whose careers have soared, promising poets whose work has all but disappeared.