KIN, by Maryann Hurtt

Poetry, chapbook, 40 pages, from Bottlecap Features. In these too often mean times, we find solace in our ties to each other. KIN’s poems open our senses—taste, smell, touch, hear, see, and maybe even our most importance sense─imagination. The words celebrate connection to animals, plants, humans, and earth herself. As a watchful witness to how we care (or not) for each other, Hurtt expands our understanding of relation, of kin. If we are to survive, even thrive, we need to recognize and embrace the ways our lives are intertwined. KIN gives us tools to carry on a journey to a more compassionate world. Retired after thirty years working as a hospice RN, Maryann Hurtt lives between an Ice Age Trail head and the Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin Public Library—the best of all possible worlds. She is especially passionate about environmental issues. Her book, Once Upon a Tar Creek Mining for Voices took twenty years of research studying a toxic, full of lead, orange creek in her family’s Oklahoma homeland. River, a chapbook, reflects on resiliency in hard times she witnessed while still working in hospice. Her poetry has been published in a variety of online and print journals including Verse Virtual, Silver Birch Anthologies, Anti-Heroin Chic, Halfway Down the Stairs, Gyroscope Review, and others. When Hurtt is not reading, writing, biking, or hiking, she finds joy in playing a dulcimer and now an accordion she recently won in a raffle.