Judith Kitchen (1941–2014)
Author of In Short: A Collection of Brief Creative Nonfiction
About the Author
Judith Kitchen attended college in Vermont. After graduating, she worked as a part-time secretary, an assistant in a carnival supply business, with the New York state Poets in the Schools, and finally as an instructor at SUNY College at Brockport. For twenty years, she served as editor and show more publisher of the State Street Press Chapbook Series. She wrote several books during her lifetime including Perennials, Writing the World: Understanding William Stafford, Only the Dance, Distance and Direction, Half in Shade: Family, Photography, and Fate, and The Circus Train. The House on Eccles Road won the S. Mariella Gable Prize in fiction. Her work has also won the Lillian Fairchild Award, the Anhinga Prize for poetry, and two Pushcart Prizes. She was the co-director of the Rainier Writing Workshop with her husband, Stan Sanvel Rubin. She died of cancer in November 2014 at the age of 73. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Works by Judith Kitchen
What Persists: Selected Essays on Poetry from The Georgia Review, 1988-2014 (Georgia Review Books Ser.) (2016) 5 copies, 1 review
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1941
- Date of death
- 2014
- Gender
- female
- Short biography
- Judith Kitchen is the author of three collections of essays, a novel, a collection of poetry, and a critical study. In addition, she has edited or co-edited three collections of short nonfiction pieces, an anthology of poetry, and a collection of literary interviews. Her awards include an NEA fellowship, two Pushcart Prizes, the Lillian Fairchild Award, and the S. Mariella Gable Award. She has served as judge for the AWP Nonfiction Award, the Pushcart Prize in poetry, the Oregon Book Award, and the Bush Foundation Fellowships, among others. She lives in Port Townsend, WA, where she serves on the faculty and as co-director of the Rainier Writing Workshop Low-Residency MFA at Pacific Lutheran University.
Members
Reviews
I've had this book traveling around on my shelves for over a decade (my notes say that I picked it up at the Newton dump when taking the recycling down for my old fabrication job). It took me this long to figure out how to read it.
I like to give short stories their proper due- to read one in a sitting, and let it sit for a bit before reading the next. These stories, though are SO short- between one and four pages, they take no more than a few minutes to read, and yet each still deserves the show more proper time to think about it. I finally got it.
This book is the best bathroom reading I have ever had. It's improved my days for several months, one or two stories a day. I will go back to reading dumb comics in the bathroom, now that I've finished it, but I will miss the brief moments of beauty that this book imparted on my day.
As always with an anthology, some stories grabbed me more than others, but the average is pretty high, here. show less
I like to give short stories their proper due- to read one in a sitting, and let it sit for a bit before reading the next. These stories, though are SO short- between one and four pages, they take no more than a few minutes to read, and yet each still deserves the show more proper time to think about it. I finally got it.
This book is the best bathroom reading I have ever had. It's improved my days for several months, one or two stories a day. I will go back to reading dumb comics in the bathroom, now that I've finished it, but I will miss the brief moments of beauty that this book imparted on my day.
As always with an anthology, some stories grabbed me more than others, but the average is pretty high, here. show less
What Persists: Selected Essays on Poetry from The Georgia Review, 1988-2014 (Georgia Review Books Ser.) by Judith Kitchen
What Persists: Selected Essays on Poetry from the Georgia Review, 1988-2014 by Judith Kitchen is a collection of selected essays previously published in the Georgia Review. Kitchen was the author of six books and co-editor of for nonfiction collections. Her awards include two Pushcart Prizes for an essay, the Lillian Fairchild Award for her novel, the Anhinga Prize for poetry, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. She has served as a judge for the AWP Nonfiction Award, the show more Pushcart Prize in poetry, the Oregon Book Award, and the Bush Foundation Fellowships, among others. Kitchen was an Advisory and Contributing Editor for The Georgia Review where she was a regular reviewer of poetry.
I am quite new to poetry and enjoy reviewing it. However, I have no formal education in poetry. My area of study is political science and international affairs. I do find poetry a nice balance to the harshness of international dealings. I like the thinking and imagery that poetry delivers to the reader. It is a thinking relaxation for me and I would hate to spoil it with too much analysis.
As an undergraduate, I reviewed T.S. Eliot's “The Wasteland” and I saw it as the aftermath of WWI and treated it in a historical sense. I came close to getting an "F" on that review because I didn't focus on fertility. I documented my findings but that was not good enough. Here is Kitchen's genius. She reviews poems and even if I didn't notice her points, she points them out in a logical and meaningful way. Unlike a student failing to see fertility gods, she gently directs the reader to her findings. After that, she explains her findings by being intimately familiar with the poet’s entire works and who he or she was inspired by. In one poem she critiques she mentions Whitman. I would never have seen it. I wouldn't have figured it out even with a hint. Kitchen points it out and identifies it. She finds themes no matter how minute through a poet’s work. Her mind worked like a wartime code breakers. The message in poetry is not always clear, but Kitchen finds order and meaning in what sometimes appears to be a jumble of words.
I found this collection of essays to be a wealth of information. She showed someone like me what to look for in poetry beyond the emotional effect. She isn’t heavy handed of monolithic in her findings, but she does show an aspiring critic what to look for in a poem. Reading her essays probably did more to open my mind to analyzing poetry than anything I have read or heard. Furthermore, her work tends to be enlightening rather than dictatorial. I will use What Persists many more times as a reference book on criticism more than I will use it as an analysis of the poems covered. It is said no one ever builds statues to critics, but Kitchen deserves one. She had great insight into poetry. show less
I am quite new to poetry and enjoy reviewing it. However, I have no formal education in poetry. My area of study is political science and international affairs. I do find poetry a nice balance to the harshness of international dealings. I like the thinking and imagery that poetry delivers to the reader. It is a thinking relaxation for me and I would hate to spoil it with too much analysis.
As an undergraduate, I reviewed T.S. Eliot's “The Wasteland” and I saw it as the aftermath of WWI and treated it in a historical sense. I came close to getting an "F" on that review because I didn't focus on fertility. I documented my findings but that was not good enough. Here is Kitchen's genius. She reviews poems and even if I didn't notice her points, she points them out in a logical and meaningful way. Unlike a student failing to see fertility gods, she gently directs the reader to her findings. After that, she explains her findings by being intimately familiar with the poet’s entire works and who he or she was inspired by. In one poem she critiques she mentions Whitman. I would never have seen it. I wouldn't have figured it out even with a hint. Kitchen points it out and identifies it. She finds themes no matter how minute through a poet’s work. Her mind worked like a wartime code breakers. The message in poetry is not always clear, but Kitchen finds order and meaning in what sometimes appears to be a jumble of words.
I found this collection of essays to be a wealth of information. She showed someone like me what to look for in poetry beyond the emotional effect. She isn’t heavy handed of monolithic in her findings, but she does show an aspiring critic what to look for in a poem. Reading her essays probably did more to open my mind to analyzing poetry than anything I have read or heard. Furthermore, her work tends to be enlightening rather than dictatorial. I will use What Persists many more times as a reference book on criticism more than I will use it as an analysis of the poems covered. It is said no one ever builds statues to critics, but Kitchen deserves one. She had great insight into poetry. show less
After noting some of the big name authors with stories in this collection, I was excited. Ultimately, it was a let down. Sure, the writing was topnotch in many cases, but the stories themselves were a little bland. I read this over the course of months - it was my book in the car, being read when I waited to pick my kids up from school or when my wife made a quick stop at a store - but I looked through the titles again when I finally finished and nothing rang a bell. On the other hand, the show more Moth collection I read much the same way had easily a half dozen stories still in my mind long after reading them. Long and short for In Short - it's just OK. show less
This book covers one day in the life of Leo and Molly Bluhm. The day happens to be their 13th wedding anniversary, and Leo has forgotten that important fact as he rushes off to teach a summer class at the university where he works. Molly works from home as a music consultant, and so she is sitting at home wondering what to do about the situation: shoud she remind Leo, should she make a special dinner, plan to go out? It becomes clear through Molly's thoughts that their relationship is show more strained and has been since tragedy struck their family 8 years earlier. Basically, the book is Molly and Leo's thoughts through the day and occasionally the thoughts of others who come into their orbit. Parts of the story were brilliant; parts were mediocre. Recommended for those who enjoy character studies and are looking for a quick read. show less
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- 17
- Members
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