Stephanie Kendrick

Stephanie Kendrick is the 2023/24 Athens, Ohio Poet Laureate. She wrote In Any of These Towns (Sheila-Na-Gig editions, 2022) and is the editor of local poetry newsletter, Periodical Poetry. With a Masters in Social Sciences from Ohio University, she serves her local community in a variety of ways, including through her career at the Athens County Board of Developmental Disabilities. She has been published in several amazing journals including Gyroscope Review, Still: The Journal, Poets Reading the News, Pudding Magazine, Lunch Bucket Brigade, Sheila-Na-Gig online, and elsewhere. See what she’s up to and read her poetry at stephthepoet.org.

Buy the book: https://sheilanagigblog.com/sheila-na-gig-editions-quick-shopping/stephanie-kendrick/

This Love, a Sunflower

I reach high above my raging head
swallow your ultraviolet breath
until it’s enough
and the heaviness wilts

I cry seeds to dirt
pray each one dissolves
in the stomach of a bird
before it can sprout
under this toxic heat