Blackberry Winter

Helga Kidder is a native of Germany's Black Forest region and lives in the Tennessee hills with her husband, Everett, and her dog, Tyler. She was awarded an MFA in Writing from Vermont College. She is co-founder of the Chattanooga Writers Guild and leads their poetry group. Her poetry most recently was featured in Southern Light, Twelve Contemporary Southern Poets and The Southern Poetry Anthology: Tennessee. She has participated in workshops in San Francisco and in Auvillar, France. She has two poetry collections, Wild Plums (2012 Finishing Line Press), and Luckier than the Stars (2013 Blue Light Press). ENDORSEMENTS: "Helga Kidder's new poetry collection, Blackberry Winter, weaves four sections through the seasons. A multitude of subject threads emerge: nature, landscapes, the arts, loss, friendship, family, and the splendid capture of solitary moments. Kidder's sensory-rich lyrics are layered with classical allusions. Her fascinations with paintings and music journey her into personal experiences, real, and imagined. These poems, light and dark, are worshipful of creation and wise about the nebulous nature of time, and one woman's place in both. Readers will find dignity and grace in these poems and savor them time and time again." -Bill Brown, Author of six collections of poetry, most recently Elemental. "Blackberry Winter maps seasons of life, loss, and love as Helga Kidder begins this beautifully crafted book with soaring images and lush allusions where "the hour licks the hem of time" ("This is the Hour I Like Best") and light is stolen "one heart leaf at a time." ("Horn of Plenty"). Kidder's love of art and music is incorporated in her ekphrastic poems that "sugar the green throats of hummingbirds" ("Repainting the House") and where the "trees know my scent after forty years" ("Star Waltz"). These poignant poems celebrate a lifetime of experiences encapsulated into words and fashioned into these poems where she is "the universe pulsing, stretching arms wide" ("Genealogy of the Planet")." -K. B. Ballentine, Author of three poetry collections, most recently What Comes of Waiting. "It makes perfect sense that Helga Kidder would pay homage to Emily Dickinson, for her own poetry is also daring, reverent, and above all, lyrical. Her poems swing open, closed, open on the world of art and nature, night and sun, the domestic and the cosmic, all embraced. The poet's reach widens to include carwashes and pedicurists, Georgia O'Keeffe and Rilke, all of us who are readers of verse. Through the poet's loving eye, we are connected to a season of joy, witnessing." -Marilyn Kallet, Author of over ten poetry collections, most recently The Love That Moves Me.