Poetry First Friday featuring Dana Kinsey

November approaches and the First Friday Poetry series at the Ragged Edge continues on November 4, 2022, at 7 p.m. in Gettysburg, PA.  Welcome to Dana Kinsey as the featured reader.  As usual, the evening begins with an open mic, so if you are so inclined, please bring a poem to share or just come to listen.

Featured poet Dana Kinsey is an actor and teacher whose works have been published in Fledgling Rag, Drunk Monkeys, ONE ART, On the Seawall, Porcupine Literary, West Trestle Review, and Autumn Sky Poetry Daily. Dana’s play, WaterRise, was produced at the Gene Frankel Theatre. Her chapbook, Mixtape Venus, is published by I. Giraffe Press. For more information visit Dana’s website at wordsbyDK.com.

Here is an example of her poetry:

To My Student Who Cried for the Creature in Frankenstein

he wasn’t built with green skin
bolted temples in a square head
some monstrous urge to kill
you knew this going in

yes he opened eyes unwanted
skin stretched, crudely stitched
over bones too big for him
you peer and feel and flinch

cast off to villagers terrified
of his power to destroy, doomed
unless they got to him first
the injustice clear in your eyes

weary in abandoned ice caves
so hungry for companionship
even his own name escaped him
this hurt you the most

it’s what crushes me too
he wished only for soft good-
night kisses from lips wet with
ocean waves sweet as birdsong

he thought words could save him
which is what I say to you, still,
\though these days it sounds closer
to hollow, I know, when even breath is hard

someone should have wanted him
how does a person create another
without knowing they will hold more
tightly when lightening lashes the dark

he wasn’t the real monster
just a newborn soul shoved into a world
that could not see how naturally his fingers curled
around another hand

Looking forward to seeing you at The Ragged Edge Coffeehouse on November 4th!