Poetry at Literati: Katherine Edgren and Jennifer Burd

Literati is thrilled to welcome poets Katherine Edgren and Jennifer Burd for a reading of their new books The Grain Beneath the Gloss and Day’s Late Blue.

Katherine Edgren grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan and was first published at the age of seventeen under her maiden name: Kathy Kool. In 2004, she was awarded first place for the Writer’s Digest non-rhyming poetry contest, and appeared in The Year’s Best Writing in 2005. Her poems have been published in the Christian Science Monitor, the Birmingham Poetry Review, Barbaric Yawp, Main Channel Voices, Oracle, Bear Creek Haiku, the Coe Review, and the Evening Street Review. They also appear in Writers Reading at Sweetwaters, An Anthology, 2007, and the Poetry Society of Michigan Anthology 2016. While Katherine is now retired, in her work life she served as a City Councilmember in Ann Arbor, Michigan, raised money for the ACLU, was a project manager on research and intervention projects in Detroit addressing asthma and air quality, and managed a department at University Health Service, the University of Michigan. Her two chapbooks were published by Finishing Line Press: “Transports,” and “Long Division.” In addition to writing, she loves to bike, garden, hike, swim, sing, and walk her dog. She lives in Dexter with her husband, and has two grown children and two grandchildren.

Jennifer Burd has had poetry published in numerous print and online journals. She is author of two full-length books of poetry, Days’ Late Blue  (2017; Cherry Grove Collections) and Body and Echo (2010; PlainView Press), a chapbook with CD of original poems set to music by Laszlo Slomovits, Receiving the Shore(2016, Little Light Publications), and a book of creative nonfiction, Daily Bread: A Portrait of Homeless Men & Women of Lenawee County, Michigan (2009; Bottom Dog Press). She is co-author of a children’s play based on Patricia Polacco’s book I Can Hear the Sun, which was produced by Wild Swan Theatre of Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 2015. She is also the recipient of the 2017-2018 Picture Book Mentorship from the Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI), Michigan chapter. Burd received her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Washington in Seattle. She currently teaches writing and literature classes at Jackson Community College, as well as creative writing classes online through The Loft Literary Center (Minneapolis).