Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno
Bonanno's heartrending collection inspires both compassion for and awe of the human spirit. Of all the losses we may be asked to bear, the murder of one’s child must be the most terrible. These poems evoke that keenly, seeking justice but transcending judgment as they grieve loss, celebrate love, and find healing.
Kathleen was featured in a story on the front page of the Philadelphia Inquirer Local Section about the Musehouse Literary Arts Center she is opening in Chestnut Hill on the 7900 block of Germantown Avenue, as a result of a 2011 Knights Art Foundation Grant and was covered by WHYY's Newsworks.
In July, 2009, Kathleen was interviewed by Terry Gross for NPR’s nationally syndicated Fresh Air. Slamming Open the Door is currently in its third printing, and was reviewed in the New York Times Book Review in April, 2009. Two of the poems from Slamming were nominated for a Pushcart Prize
The poet Sharon Olds calls Slamming Open the Door "a gift of power, truth, rage and beauty." David Kirby in the New York Times Book Review says, "Readers will have to step outside of a familiar, comforting tradition of poetic grief while reading this book ... to read this book is not to behold a completed work but to stand onstage with a writer who finds herself in the middle of a story in which she has been reluctantly cast."
Kathleen’s poetry has also been published in Women’s Review of Books, Margie and the anthology: Beloved on the Earth: 150 Poems of Grief and Gratitude which includes poems by Wendell Berry, Mary Oliver and Denise Levertov.
In 2007, Kathleen received the Purple Ribbon Award from the Lutheran Settlement Home for her advocacy on behalf of domestic violence issues. She is a contributing editor of The American Poetry Review and teaches English and creative writing in Montgomery County.
“When Emily Dickinson wrote the line 'After great pain, a formal feeling comes' I think she was referring to poems—and the occasions that make them impossible to not write—like these. Spare, unflinching, and powerful, the poems in Slamming Open the Door move me to the bone. How does one say I love this book, which I wish never had to be written? Only one way: I love this book. I wish it did not have to be written.”—Thomas Lux
Upcoming Events for Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno:
| February 1 and 3, 2011 7:30 P.M. |
WLVT Emmy Award-Winning "Tempo In Depth" Featuring Kathleen Bonanno PBS Channel 39 |
| March 15, 2011 | University of Maryland, Baltimore County |
| April 3, 2011 | Poetry Fest -
Springfield Free Library Speaker |
| April 8, 2011 7:30 P.M. |
Bucks County Community College Guest Lecturer |
| April 11 and 12, 2011 | Workshop and Poetry Reading Northwest Florida State College |
| April 16, 2011 | Artists' and Writers' Collaborative, Chestnut Hill Gallery |
| May 1, 2011 10:30 A.M. |
First Unitarian Universalist Church of Berks County Guest Sermon |
| June 3, 4 and 5, 2011 | Philadelphia Writer's Conference Kathleen is leading Workshops on "Poetry as Memoir" |
| Complete Event Schedule | |