Llewellyn Mckernan grew up writing poetry in a swing on her family’s front porch. No skeptic’s air there, just a fresh breeze and a nearby shade tree that kept her from being blinded by too much sun.
She grew up well-educated: high school, college, M.A. Degree in English (University of Arkansas), M.A. Degree in Creative Writing (Brown University). But she never really left that front porch swing. It just moved to West Virginia where she wrote poems in the one she found on the porch there, which just fit her lonely lonesome, hoot and holler, heckle-foot state of being.
Now she lives in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, where—though she doesn’t have a swing—she has a screened-in back porch where she sits and contemplates the edge of a forest—and still writes poems. And all along, they’ve gotten published in many journals, including Artemis, Kalliope, Nimrod, Southern Poetry Review, Antietam Review, Kenyon Review, Now&Then, Appalachian Review, and Appalachian Journal. They’ve been included in fifty-seven anthologies, and they’ve won 107 regional, state, or national awards and prizes.
Six of her poetry books have been published: Short and Simple Annals (1978, AAUW Author Grant; 2nd ed. 1982, West Virginia Humanities Council Author Grant); Many Waters (Mellen Poetry Press, 1993); Llewellyn McKernan’s Greatest Hits (Pudding House Pres, 2005); Pencil Memory (Finishing Line Press, 2010); The Sound of One Tree Falling (Motes Books, 2014); and Getting Ready to Travel (Finishing Line Press, 2017). She has also had four poetry books published for children: More Songs of Gladness (Concordia, 1987); Bird Alphabet (Standard Publishing, 1989); and This is the Day and This is the Night (C.R. Gibson, 1994).
She has also been an adjunct English professor at Marshall University (Huntington, WV) and St. Mary’s College (Lexington Park, MD) and directed state and regional writing workshops. Her writing mantra comes from the advice that the French novelist Colette gave to a young writer: “Look long and hard at what gives you the most pleasure, but look even longer and harder at what gives you the most pain.”
Paperback: 82 pages
Publisher: Kelsay Books (February 1, 2024)