Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Winter Ready
    Winter Ready
    Winter Ready
    Ebook101 pages43 minutes

    Winter Ready

    By Leland Kinsey

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Winter Ready is a 96-page collection of new poems by a Vermont-based writer who draws from his impressive repertoire of observations and physical landscape of the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont to bring to the reader poems with universal meaning and at times a painful acuity.    Kinsey opens the collection perched up high on the chimney top, working and observing his surroundings, and throughout the book, he never really gets down-he chronicles a people and a place and a time-and keeps the hard work of writing poetry hidden in the seeming effortless verse that is often funny and poignant, yet always sharp and clear.    In this new collection by a renowned Vermont poet, the setting is the same, but the voice rings true to the people and the land they inhabit, always respectful of the native peoples who came before and the awesome power of a glacier that carved a path in its wake. These poems evoke a fully realized view of the world the poet inhabits, an awareness of labor and its changing nature. The book moves through poem after glowing poem, evoking natural history, flora and fauna, with a place-based and focused attention.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGreen Writers Press
    Release dateMar 20, 2014
    ISBN9780989983853
    Winter Ready

    Related to Winter Ready

    Related ebooks

    Poetry For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Scarlet Ribbons

      Oct 20, 2022

      I was two when I came to love the tiny, red flowers that spilled over the worn doorstep of my first home and splattered the cracked pathway to the beck with vibrant colour. Like Hansel’s breadcrumbs, the scarlet pimpernel ribbon was my security on th

      3 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Jan 1, 2021

      I learned the world through the bottoms of my feet, barein the creeks of summer, stepping on pebbles, the squidgeof moss between my toes. On hot asphalt, the hop and skipover cracks, feet already toughened by bramble, dirt, the pricklyground of pine

      4 min read

    • Article

      Sinking Into The Arctic

      Jun 4, 2020

      Sinking Into The Arctic
      12 min read

    • Article

      Country Diary

      Sep 14, 2022

      Country Diary
      2 min read

    • Article

      The Best Tonic There Is

      Oct 7, 2020

      The Best Tonic There Is
      4 min read

    • Article

      Pond Project Takes Flight

      Feb 26, 2020

      Pond Project Takes Flight
      5 min read

    • Article

      Awalk In The Veld

      Aug 27, 2021

      Awalk In The Veld
      5 min read

    • Article

      BOOK EXCERPT Tending the Valley

      Nov 19, 2020

      BOOK EXCERPT Tending the Valley
      8 min read

    • Article

      Fish the Tails

      Apr 2, 2024

      Fish the Tails
      3 min read

    • Article

      Lay Of The Land

      May 3, 2020

      TODAY I’m the self-appointed inspector of the alley behind our house. A mop rests end-up on my neighbor’s chainlink fence, its teardrop loops of purple string drying in the heat. Wisteria, I think, because it’s spring, and I have flowers on the brain

      17 min read

    • Article

      Strange Coast

      Sep 1, 2020

      Strange Coast
      6 min read

    • Article

      Letters from Hillside

      May 13, 2020

      Letters from Hillside
      5 min read

    • Article

      Three Poems

      May 1, 2020

      Neighbors call the stand of pinea ghost forest—t because when glaciers melt,the sea steals onto the land, the saltseeps in, and long established marshes, once fresh, now salt, seizefrom bleach and blacken at the rootof grubby shrubs, grasses, stands

      1 min read

    • Article

      River Hewn

      Jul 3, 2018

      River Hewn
      5 min read

    • Article

      My kingfisher journey

      Jun 4, 2022

      My kingfisher journey
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Best Watering Hole In Essex

      Oct 7, 2020

      The Best Watering Hole In Essex
      5 min read

    • Article

      A Life Unhurried

      Jul 16, 2020

      A Life Unhurried
      2 min read

    • Article

      Mussel Memory

      Jun 3, 2021

      Mussel Memory
      14 min read

    • Article

      In The Thick Of It

      Feb 23, 2022

      In The Thick Of It
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Ducks Of Home

      Sep 19, 2022

      The Ducks Of Home
      7 min read

    • Article

      Tracie Morris

      Mar 9, 2021

      1. There’s a sign near the waterfrontI think it’s advertising cheer:says 400 YEARS, VIRGINIA SPIRITS. A swig. A year ago last night, my dead crowd mean even ceremonyof Jamestown, at the schooner that brought those first here.They think: long tripdid

      2 min read

    • Article

      When Winter Came Back

      Feb 24, 2021

      When Winter Came Back
      3 min read

    • Article

      Thin Ice

      Oct 27, 2022

      Thin Ice
      6 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Winter Ready

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Winter Ready - Leland Kinsey

      READY

      POINTING THE CHIMNEY

      I climbed to the three-story rooftop

      of my house; tried to keep

      my balance on the ladder hung

      by rope from the old antenna base

      left standing like a ship’s busted spar.

      With the ogee of the trowel blade

      I pushed the stiff mortar far

      into the crevices from which old mortar had fallen

      both onto the roof and ground, and down

      inside the unlined flue.

      In places I could see completely through

      to that darkening well of light

      more than four stories tall

      from the basement floor.

      When I’d opened the ash-pit door

      and begun the annual cleaning,

      I’d noticed pieces of grout clinking

      against the shovel amidst the soot

      and creosote debris. To keep

      the chimney from going to wrack

      I carefully pointed and packed

      each crevice, bed joint, head joint,

      between course after course of common bond,

      tucking carefully by flashing and cricket.

      I scraped mortar from the board

      until it lay even with each stretcher’s face.

      After it dries for a time, I’ll place

      the trowel’s curved edge against

      each grout line; using it as a float,

      I’ll run it hard for a concave finish.

      The lime in the concrete will not diminish

      the strength too greatly. Without it

      the mortar would be much harder

      than the old bricks and its expansion

      would cause them to fracture or spall.

      I’ll be careful not to let anything fall,

      or me, from my odd high perch,

      when I finally climb to mould a crowning rim

      of wire-reinforced grout daub by daub,

      my awkward form

      bent to the day’s work.

      CHIMNEY SWIFTS

      Pointing the chimney,

      I startled, almost off the roof.

      Up shot from the flue’s mouth

      like shrapnel from a mortar

      flew dozens of swifts,

      and flew higher like flinders

      from an exploding shell.

      Once the optical illusion

      of their alternate wing beats

      ceased, they soared,

      their tight cigar-like bodies

      and boomerang wings

      whirling in outside loops,

      Immelmann turns, stalls,

      nosedives, hunting

      and eating on the fly.

      Then, since they cannot perch,

      ignoring me

      they dove like dropped stones

      back down the flue’s mouth,

      but en masse looked like smoke returning,

      to where I could not see them

      in the dark well.

      I could hear

      the scratching of their small claws

      and bristly bracing tails; the small sound

      and tiny echo of their twittering calls.

      I have sometimes found a nestling

      in the ashes, fallen,

      and no way to replace it.

      But these were postbreeders

      in some numbers

      colonizing my creosote-

      stained, cold-spalled chimney

      that I’m trying to keep standing.

      The birds will migrate soon

      from this narrow room,

      this edifice I serve

      which serves us well.

      I’ll clean the hard and the ashy

      residues of last year’s fires.

      The stiff brushes for this work

      will also scrape away

      the few spit and twig crescents

      that, like fragile boats, floated

      their seasonal, small-white-egg

      and nestling cargo

      over depths the living

      never plumbed.

      PLAYING FUNGO

      My grown son asks to go out

      and have me hit a few

      before first snow. I lay down

      hard grounders and shout

      Good stop. His way

      of staying connected to his youth,

      not distant, and me.

      I remember a time

      I could swing the bat with ease,

      no hitch in the hips,

      back muscles wouldn’t seize.

      The days stretched long

      for my brother and me, in sharp-

      stubble fields as we got so good

      we were so far apart

      we could hardly talk;

      or with the few neighbor kids,

      for inning after uncounted inning.

      Grass wore out, and stained.

      Dirt scrapes, close calls--self called—

      gave one a sense of winning

      even when the score was lopsided,

      as were

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1