Kari Gunter-Seymour

A Place So Deep Inside America It Can’t Be Seen,

Winner of the 2020 Ohio Poet of the Year Award

by Kari Gunter-Seymour

$16.00 ($4.63 US Shipping per order)

Kari Gunter-Seymour (she/her) is the Poet Laureate of Ohio and the author of three award-winning collections of poetry, including Dirt Songs (EastOver Press 2024), winner of the IPPY Bronze and Feathered Quill Awards. She is the Executive Director of the Women of Appalachia Project and editor of its anthology series Women Speak. Her work has been featured in a variety of journals and the American Book Review, Poem-a-Day, World Literature Today and The New York Times. www.karigunterseymourpoet.com

To My Husband’s Brilliant Niece
Who Planned a Tidy Suicide

My sister did too—
canceled credit cards, her cell,
positioned aromatic vases,
styled her clothing, her hair,
laid herself down on a plastic sheet.

She seemed to know exactly
where she was going.
I suspect you did too,
your pedagogics a microcosm
of quantum curiosity
and looped worlds,
your dreams of the afterlife
full thrust, faster than light—
a place no sun need shine.

I hope you will look for her there.
She answers to the name Margaret,
her aura overtones of trying-so-hard
and never-good-enough.
A kindred spark, opting
to take the same shortcut home.