Spotlight: Sarah Mackey Kirby

Hi All

It's a wonderful day to introduce the amazing work of people I find highly talented. Today, it is with great enthusiasm, here on the Jimmy Broccoli page and on my website (JimmyBroccoli.com), to share with you the poetry of Sarah Mackey Kirby.

Sarah's poems take the reader on an adventure, are diverse and consistently excellent. Sarah's words move me - the emotions behind them and the intensity with which they are presented always make me want to read more. So I do.

Sarah in her own words:

Hey Y'all. I'm Sarah Mackey Kirby. I grew up and still live in beautiful Louisville, Kentucky. My poems run the gamut. From deeply personal to toe-dipping into the absurd. I'm known for my hyphen strings and combining free verse with turn-on-a-dime, what-kinda-rhyme-is-that structure. Often in the same poem. I write from my gut and try to write as though no one will read my poems. That helps me keep my courage up. My book is The Taste of Your Music (Impspired, 2021). And you can find my poems in various publications.

I used to be a high school and middle school history teacher. Now, I write and edit. I love to cook, travel, and feel spring dirt on my hands. My husband and I have a sweet cat and loving dog who's never lived a day without mischief.

Website: https://smkirby.com/ facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SMKwriter

Sarah Mackey Kirby is one of my favorite poets. And, I highly suspect she may become one of yours as well. ______________

We Love For Real

We love active-verb-real. That real. As rain creates mud. Sloshing boots. Stuck. Heads-together, no words for the hard or the stumbles. For the pain-filled where-did-God-go days.

You? Getting through college? Let’s be honest. I might’ve made it a tad easier with my paper markup magic when I didn't know what you were trying to convey or even what you wrote. So you’d play video games and say fix it up any way that sounds good, baby. And I did. We love for real.

Through all those you’d-hold-me- when-they-told-me-I-might-die days. My couldn't talk, or walk, or hide-from-the-clock. The rocks through the march. Years and years of it. 2013. That’s some PTSD-forget-that-shit. And I would PRAY. I would pray. Those prayers were answered by you getting cancer eight months later. Not enough cuss words for how fucked up that was. But we love for real.

We love in the dark. In the dirt. In the shame. In the my-skull-is-attached-to-a-drain. Where wildflowers bleed into the horizon. Where weeds foreshadow the dying. Through the poison. The frightened. The left-to-the-stars-to-fight-it. We love in bleak. We love in mess. In the blessed. It's our poetry. It's how we love. For real.

(First read on Siren Radio, Word Perfect, Host Steve Cawte) ______________

A Quiet House

I decided when I grew up, I’d have a quiet house. Where snapping wind-tapped twigs and magnolia leaves traced an open window.

Where vitriol didn’t bleed through walls, and slammed back doors did not exist. Where only eager barking dogs could break no-loud-noise code.

Where tiptoed morning socks would press against old oak slats in perfect creak of settled floor. Toward hush-baked kitchen's hot coffee drips.

Where fear-shake voices didn’t upset nerves. And sniffling noses stayed reserved for colds. Where yells accompanied just good news.

A firefly porch where summer tea ice moved in lemoned glass as a porch swing drifted through nighttime June.

Where Southern rain fell fat drops of peace. Where hearts never sped. And quiet stairs led to a cozy, laugh-messed bed. Where dreams kept quiet too.

(Published Dream Noir)