About the Book
In ARIADNE'S THREADS, Kaaren Kitchell's luminous, wise and frequently heart-breaking new collection of poetry, a contemporary Ariadne follows the threads of her own past as she retraces both distant and more recent paths through the labyrinth of a life's experiences. Her stories are eloquently told, lyrically charged and often simply gorgeous. Love--both familial and personal--is the compelling thread that most often draws the speaker to the choices which have shaped her life. Quietly sardonic, mature and brilliant in their intimate reckonings, these poems reveal the many ways that living mythically can allow us always to seize the immediate moment while feeling in one's mind, heart and body the pulse and reverberations of what seems most sacred and unbound by time. As with only the finest books, ARIADNE'S THREADS helps each of us to find paths and passages through our own lives.--David St. John
Kaaren Kitchell covers a lot of territory in this little book of surreal gems: Paris, Zurich, Greece, Pyramid Lake, Santa Monica Bay, Sausalito, Cambridge, Los Alamos, Joseph City, all filled with myth and mayhem, rue and joy. Then there are the devastating love poems for a lost beloved husband that blends the surreal with the narrative, image-laden with all the senses: lavender and roses, oranges and avocado, coffee and wedding cake, spider's web and lace bras. And the birds fly through, swimming the air above and below the pond, the couple, one now a ghost, two swans mated for life.--Dorianne Laux
For me, one of the great pleasures about reading poetry is the chance to be in someone else's true presence, actually to see the world with their eyes. In this wonderful book, I have that feeling. I am indeed seeing the world's colors and shapes, its strange mythical strands of history and culture, tragedy, hope, love and tenderness, with Ms Kitchell's eyes. But there's something more. The lines sing, and resonate, and the play of mind is everywhere, of course. The artistry is subtle. The insights, though lyrical, are often satisfyingly tough. But as I read, and re-read, I receive the happy realization of the something more: in ARIADNE'S THREADS, I'm also seeing the world with this fine poet's heart.--Richard Bausch
Poetry.
About the Author :
Kaaren Kitchell's writing life began in Paradise Valley, Arizona, where she won the fourth-grade autobiography contest. The promised prize: a trip to Europe. The delivered prize: a film about the same. She stopped entering contests, but years later, she moved to Paris. Her poems have since appeared in numerous literary journals, various anthologies, and in a fine art manuscript at the Getty Museum. She received an MFA in Creative Writing, Fiction, from Antioch University, LA. She has worked as a performance artist, a tutor for blind high school students, a cook on a schooner, a bookseller in Sausalito, CA, Cambridge, MA, and NYC, and she and her late husband, Richard Beban, taught Living Mythically at the C.G. Jung Institute in L.A., at Esalen Institute, and in private workshops in the U.S. and Paris. Their blog of her essays and his photos, Paris Play, can be found at www.parisplay.com. She is Fiction Editor and Co-Poetry Editor of TheScreamOnline (www.thescreamonline.com). Her first full-length book of poems, ARIADNE'S THREADS, will be published by Tebot Bach in fall 2021.
