The Real McCoy

Kathleen McCoy on Poetry

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about

I’m a poet, a professor, a mother, a wife, a bit of an activist, a lover of the word at https://kathleenmccoy.wordpress.com. Poetry books include Ringing the Changes (Finishing Line Press, 2019), Green and Burning, Glas Agus a Dho (Word Tech, 2016) and More Water Than Words (chapbook, Finishing Line Press, 2017). Books are available from the publishers or Amazon, or order from your local bookseller.

Author: Kathleen McCoy

  • Mama’s Proverbs

    in memory of Eva Leah Robinson McCoy Bite into the apple of love, enjoy its juice and let the seeds fall all around you. ~ Lips and hands must measure before they dispense their wares. ~ Set an extra plate for an unexpected guest— someday it could be you. ~ What you most despise in…

  • Pretty Words . . .

    elude me this winter, this long winter. The snow remains, melting flake by flake. Even so, we know the day will come when ground is sufficiently dry to respond, to whip grains of ground into a mini-vortex and send its origami cranes skyward again. Writers can’t wait. We witness it all, we soak in snow, we…

  • Writing and Empathy

    Originally posted on O Write: Marilynonaroll's Blog: A poem by Dante Di Stefano, “A Drone Pilot Discusses the Story of Abraham and Isaac” (http://www.amethystarsenic.com/issues/4-1/dante-di-stefano.php) compares Abraham’s faith on that day he offered up his son to the kind of everyday faith with which we live our mundane lives, faith that, for example, if we wait…

  • Between “Human” and “Being”

    Poets, like humanoids of all stripes, play a balancing game on a daily basis. Grade papers. Run to meetings. Teach classes. Run kids to events and activities. Check in with the spouse. Dust once in a blue moon. Throw leftovers in the microwave. Eat. Run some more. Rinse. Repeat. It’s what Ekhart Tolle, in A…

  • Book Signing

    Daughter, do not give your stories to the wind . . . . — “For My Daughter” by Kathleen McCoy The Willows Bistro in Warrensburg, New York is hosting a book signing/reading event this Saturday, December 7th. I will be selling copies of my chapbook, Night-blooming Cereus and other poems, for $5.00. (Makes a decent…

  • Web Words

  • 100 Thousand Poets for Change

    There may never be a time when it is more important to bring the Big Ideas of Peace and Sustainability home. And nothing brings Big Ideas home to roost like poetry. It’s been my joy to assemble local poets, artists, and thinkers with a global initiative: the SUNY Adirondack Writers Project is sponsoring 100 Thousand…

  • Poetry of Witness

    How do you feel about “poetry of witness”? I’m referring to a still-debated term used by Carolyn Forche and other poets that respond in their poems to the injustices, oppression, and violence suffered by others. At the recent AWP conference in Boston, I heard wonderful poets–from the Old Guard and the Newer  alike–including Sharon Olds,…

  • Do the Catwalk

    This year, I’m challenging myself–and any of you who care to join–to claim your own catwalk to move across steadily and with as much grace as we can muster. I’m not talking about a Kate Moss catwalk, but the kind that’s tethered near the tops of trees, a single cable you inch across for the…

  • caroll ann duffy | mr. midas

    Originally posted on poetry dispatch & other notes from the underground: POETRY DISPATCH No.386 | November 27, 2012 Carol Ann Duffy Editor’s Note: Though the “Poet Laureate” honor has never been my cup of tea (given the politics present in such selections), I do occasionally visit whatever fashionable Laureates have been honored on the American…