Photo by Linda Smallpage of Boutique Photographer
Lora Keller
Poet
I was born in Memphis, Tennessee in the same apartment complex as Elvis. Yes, that Elvis. I grew up in Appleton and Kaukauna, Wisconsin and attended undergrad and grad schools in Milwaukee. After living in New York City and Kansas City, I settled in Milwaukee more than 30 years ago where I write full-time, read as much as I can, plan travel adventures and obsess over fashion and sports.
Reviews
This short, tightly wrought poem unsettled me, and I found myself returning to it again and again. In terms of craft, there’s much to praise here—the finely tuned lineation, that remarkable turn in the penultimate stanza, and the wonderfully understated ending that follows. Impressive, too, is the work the title does. How simple and straightforward it first appears, yet how fully it informs the poem’s key moment. So much can happen by way of a single glance, and so much happens here, in this complex and powerful poem.
-- Janet McAdams, judge for the state-wide Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets 2024 Muse Contest
Lora Keller's skillful ease with a wide range of subjects is a pleasure. Her intuitive language and refreshing insightfulness cast unexpectedly revealing and fascinating brilliance... so unrelentingly precise and beautiful in description, it is nothing short of an awakening.
-- Leslie Monsour, judge for the Council for Wisconsin Writers 2022 poetry contest
It's just a vivid, musical, highly condensed, and yet evocative rendering of a scene that Edward Hopper might have painted.
- Max Garland, judge for Wisconsin Writers Association Jade Ring Contest.
This poem uses simile and extended metaphor in surprising and ultimately very lovely ways: each image and comparison is clear, extremely specific, and intentional. The concision of the syntax leaves plenty of room for the reader’s imagination, and the sentences get shorter as the climax approaches – a breathless stuttering. The final two stanzas took my breath away. A cat in the garden, a tussle, and a shower of petals – and the speaker steps into the beauty of her sexuality for the first time. This is a gorgeous, finished poem.
-- 2021 Triad Contest Judge
-- Janet McAdams, judge for the state-wide Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets 2024 Muse Contest
Lora Keller's skillful ease with a wide range of subjects is a pleasure. Her intuitive language and refreshing insightfulness cast unexpectedly revealing and fascinating brilliance... so unrelentingly precise and beautiful in description, it is nothing short of an awakening.
-- Leslie Monsour, judge for the Council for Wisconsin Writers 2022 poetry contest
It's just a vivid, musical, highly condensed, and yet evocative rendering of a scene that Edward Hopper might have painted.
- Max Garland, judge for Wisconsin Writers Association Jade Ring Contest.
This poem uses simile and extended metaphor in surprising and ultimately very lovely ways: each image and comparison is clear, extremely specific, and intentional. The concision of the syntax leaves plenty of room for the reader’s imagination, and the sentences get shorter as the climax approaches – a breathless stuttering. The final two stanzas took my breath away. A cat in the garden, a tussle, and a shower of petals – and the speaker steps into the beauty of her sexuality for the first time. This is a gorgeous, finished poem.
-- 2021 Triad Contest Judge