Tuesday, April 1, 2008

New poetry chapbook explores Helen Keller's life



A new poetry chapbook, Helen Takes The Stage: The Helen Keller Poems, by writer and poet Kathi Wolfe has just been published by Pudding House Press. Wolfe was a finalist in the 2007 Pudding House Press Chapbook competition.

I don't pretend to know much about poetry, but I do know Kathi Wolfe, who is visually impaired, and she has done excellent writing about Helen Keller and disability topics for years. Her work has appeared in Gargoyle, Potomac Review, Innisfree Poetry Journal, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Not Just Air, Wordgathering, Breath & Shadow and other publications. She has received a Puffin Foundation Grant and awarded poetry residencies by Vermont Studio Center.

Wolfe has read at the Library of Congress Poetry at Noon series and appeared on "The Poet and the Poem," a public radio show distributed by NPR satellite. A freelance writer and columnist for a number of newspapers and magazines, she also writes a column on books for Scene4, a monthly international arts and media magazine.