Blue City Poets: Kansas City

by Polly Alice McCann (Editor), Michael B. Savage (Illustrator), Kēvin Paul Callahan (Contributor)

Blue City Poets: Kansas City-- From the pulse of a starlit Mid-Town roof to the beat of a cicada-humming-July-blue-summer day; from memories of the rolling prairie to the squeaky wheel of the shopping cart on a blizzard-ready night on the Eastside, Kansas City is home to the blues in a dozen ways. Come sit for a spell with like memories, or visit for the first time. These words of Kansas City poets will draw you in with a longing that is as real as it is enjoyable until you agree, 'there is no place like home.' Illustrated with lush, buoyant paintings by Michael B Savage, SAV art gallery. Works by Malcolm Byers, Kēvin Paul Callahan, William Edward Dozier, Melissa Goodnight, Jamie Lynn Heller, Mary-Lane Kamberg, C.M. Millen, Frances A. Rove, Mary Silwance, T.L. Sanders, Taylor Ware

49 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2019

About the author

POLLY ALICE MCCANN’s lyrical poetry paints a picture of the narratives of the internal heartland. That’s not surprising since she is also an artist. Her art and poetry have been published in US newspapers and magazines most recently in Rattle magazine. A professor of English, she is also the founder and manager of FLYING KETCHUP PRESS. She credits much of her creative work due to her research on dreams which won her the 2014 Ernest Hartmann award from Berkeley, CA. Find her first three poetry collections, Kinlight, Tea with Alice, and Puss ‘N Boötes online. Polly Alice has also edited two collections of short stories and two poetry anthologies. The most recent, “The Very Edge” is a collection of 37 international artists and poets. With her MFA in Writing from Hamline University in St. Paul, with an emphasis in poetry and short fiction, her poetry has published internationally in journals such as Naugatuck River, and arc24 in Tel Aviv and elsewhere. She says her favorite thing is to tell stories-- other people's, her own-- maybe yours.

In her first book of poetry, Kinlight, she uses narrative free verse to explore the measures taken as a woman to find a place to become visible: 'I will not forget,' she writes. 'I am woman, all things began in me.' Ghosts and vapors, flour and light, her first collection remain subtle in color, but dives into bone and marrow of women in today's America.