Laurie Kuntz has published two poetry collections (The Moon Over My Mother’s House, Finishing Line Press and Somewhere in the Telling, Mellen Press), and three chapbooks (Talking Me Off The Roof, KelsayBooks, SimpleGestures, Texas Review Press, and Women at the Onsen, Blue Light Press). Simple Gestures, won the Texas Review Poetry Chapbook Contest, and Women at the Onsen won the Blue Light Press Chapbook Contest. Her new book, That Infinite Roar, is forthcoming in 2023 from Gyroscope Press. She has been nominated for three Pushcart Prizes and a Best of the Net Prize. Her work has been published in Gyroscope Review, Roanoke Review, Third Wednesday, One Art, Sheila Na Gig, and many other literary journals. She currently resides in Florida, where everyday is a political poem waiting to be written.
Laurie Kuntz is an award-winning poet and film producer. She taught creative writing and poetry in Japan, Thailand, and the Philippines. Many of her poetic themes are a result of her working with Southeast Asian refugees for over a decade after the Vietnam War years.
She has published two poetry collections, The Moon Over My Mother’s House (Finishing Line Press) and Somewhere in the Telling (Mellen Press); and two chapbooks, Simple Gestures (Texas Review Press) and Women at the Onsen (Blue Light Press); as well as an ESL
reader, The New Arrival, Books 1 & 2 (Prentice Hall Publishers). Moment Poetry Press has published a broadside of her poem “The Moon Over My Mother’s House” on their website. Her poems “Darnella’s Duty” and “Not Drowning But Waving” have been produced in a podcast from LKMNDS, and her poem, “Darnella’s Duty” is published in a new Black Lives Matter Anthology from CivicLeicester. Her two ESL books have been featured on the podcast ESL for Equality.
Her poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and her chapbook Simple Gestures won the Texas Review Poetry Chapbook Contest. She was editor-in-chief of Blue Muse Magazine and a guest editor of Hunger Mountain Magazine. She has produced documentaries on the repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Law, and she is an associate producer for a documentary on the Colombian peace process and reintegration of guerrilla soldiers in Colombia. She is the executive producer of an Emmy winning short narrative film, Posthumous. Recently retired, she lives in an endless summer state of mind.
ANHINGA DRYING HER WINGS
Where has she flown for the need to stop on a lily pad and spread wet tipped wings under the ebb of day?
What venture caused her to dive into this lagoon black with its endless bottom?
Who are we, passersby, to disturb her stance on reeds fragile to sight and thought of these steps we both make on sandy roads?
Under waning suns winged and footed journeys are beginning anew and ending, marked with the coming of first snow and last rose.
Poem from upcoming book: The Infinite Roar