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| Photo: Jordan F.B. Rueckert |
Elizabeth Kincaid-Ehler’s second poetry collection
offers a rich variety of moods ranging from despair to hope, resignation
to determination, fury to love. And always there is that wry (sometimes
rueful) wit at play. Ending in a series of love poems addressed to children
and grandchildren, the book paints the portrait of a splendidly unpredictable,
courageous and humane woman. About Seasoning
Drew Sanborn has written, “These poems tell the truth. They come
from a life dedicated to learning – not only the learning of books
and classrooms, although Elizabeth has always done that remarkably well
– but the learning that comes from listening carefully to her own
true self and to the deepest selves of those around her. As she examines
her childhood, her family life, and issues raised by politics and the
environment, she is not afraid to ask hard questions and not afraid to
confront the truths they reveal.” David Holdt adds this: “Elizabeth
Kincaid-Ehlers is the smartest person I know. Yet she is no dry didactic.
Her insights flash, her allusions expand our understanding, and her conclusions
warm our hearts. She touches the essential in every poem. She cares deeply
about what is important and includes the reader in her quest for the true,
the beautiful, and the human.” And this praise from Jarold Ramsey:
“The poems in Elizabeth Kincaid-Ehlers’ Seasoning
are by turns angry, nostalgic, bitter, despairing, and forgiving, as they
circle around the central question of this compelling book — ‘How
should I matter to myself?’ — and they accept no easy answers
or facile comforts. But in a remarkable concluding series of poems about
the weddings of her sons and the company of her small grandchildren, she
strikes a beautiful, affirming chord that plays over the whole collection.
Out of the seasons of one woman’s life emerges the ‘seasoning’
that is real wisdom.”
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| Cover Photo by the Author |
Elizabeth Kincaid-Ehlers was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She spent her early
years in the Midwest, then moved to Buckhead, Georgia, at that time
a small town just northeast of Atlanta. She went back to Ann Arbor,
to the University of Michigan, for her undergraduate work. While there,
she received a Hopwood Award in Poetry. Having dropped out of college
and married young, she spent several years giving birth to children
and going along with her husband’s career moves, managing in the
meantime to finish her B.A. and go on to earn an M.A. at the University
of Illinois and a Ph.D. at the University of Rochester. After the marriage
ended, Elizabeth came to Connecticut in 1979 as a visiting-writer-in-residence
at Trinity College. Finding that she liked living in Connecticut, she
decided to settle in the state after her contract at Trinity ended.
While re-training to become a therapist and counselor, she taught part-time
at local colleges and served as visiting writer in several public school
systems. Since the mid-eighties, she has maintained a private practice
in psychotherapy in West Hartford. To her great and continuing delight,
three of her sons, with their wives, and—so far—one granddaughter
and two grandsons, live in the immediate area. Her fourth son, with
his family, lives in upstate New York. According to family legend, Elizabeth
began making poems when she was three, engaging her mother as amanuensis.
She has been making them ever since, sometimes writing them down, occasionally
putting them out into the world. Leaping and Looming (2005)
is a collection of poems written from 1979 to 2004. Elizabeth was featured
in the first year of the Sunken Garden Poetry Festival and has received
many awards, including the North Country Poetry Prize and a Pushcart
Prize nomination from Nimrod magazine. During most of her years
in Connecticut, Elizabeth has met regularly with a group of poets who
both sustain each other and give each other a hard time as they go over
their work. Each summer they get together for poetry camp at Elizabeth’s
cabin on Stave Island in the St. Lawrence River.
Click here to read sample poems.
Click here to view Elizabeth Kincaid-Ehlers’ upcoming events
Click here to read ancillary material in the Seminar Room
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