The Poets in the Woods: New Poems by Christi  Shannon Kline

ISBN: 8182500737 1st Edition: 2016 Paper pp.88 Rs. 495

In these searching, sensual poems, Kline discloses her longing “to come to terms with the bones of things.” She triumphs. Cultivating her new life in nature, she unflinchingly revisits her grief as its shards arise, but does not dwell in “memory’s long-necked bottle.” Kline celebrates the healing power of nature and the tonic of manual labor in images vivid and musical. From “moss blessings” and “the errant carrot,” to the “deepening vortex” of a snowstorm and “the star-drunk lake,” hers is an affecting journey well worth witnessing. -Irene O’Garden, Pushcart Prize-winning poet, Off-Broadway playwright Poet, playwright, performer, and Arkansas native, Christi Shannon Kline left the beauty of “The Natural State” at an early age for a career in the entertainment industry. Kline worked in many aspects of the business before an injury led her to explore writing as a means of expression. Her first attempt yielded Reunion, a drama in the Southern Gothic Style, which received a professional reading and performance in Manhattan, with Kline in the leading role. Kline’s formal training in poetry came from The New School in Manhattan, where she was privileged to study by invitation with award-winning poet and mentor Marie Ponsot, who generously endorsed her first book, No Child More Perfect & Other Poems (Nirala, 2012). Ponsot’s influence is apparent in Poets in the Woods, inspired by the healing power of nature found in her new home in the beautiful New Jersey Highlands, which Kline finds reassuringly reminiscent of her native Arkansas. A member of Actors’ Equity Association, The Dramatists Guild, and Poets & Writers, Kline has read and performed at venues throughout the United States and abroad.