Shelter in Place

by Laurie Kuntz

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Every poem is a journey and every journey, a poem. The poems in Shelter In Place  all begin with a  journey  to  places of heart and mind.  Shelter In Place, as the title implies, is a collection of poems which reflects upon finding a place of safety and acceptance while grappling with societal and personal issues of dissension, alienation, and assimilating into one's own  personal strength and identity. It is also a book of transitions, the poet's voice visits all the  stages of life from wanderer,  partner, mother, lover, and all the epiphanies that come between.  Whether it be watching a father and son playing ball, or watching a lover reach for the last mango in the fridge, or witnessing displacement of war torn peoples --the journeys we take in life, the journeys and the destinations we reach all can be the making of a poem, and these poems, the making of Shelter In Place.

POETRY / General

ISBN: 978-1-971191-13-3 (print; softcover; perfect bound)

LCCN: 2026939154

100 pages

Author Biography

Laurie Kuntz lived and worked as a writer and teacher in the Philippines, Thailand, and Japan for thirty-five years, but she is now in nomadic retirement mode. Her poetic themes are a result of working with Southeast Asian refugees, living as an expatriate, and raising a husband and son. Her previous books are: Balance (Moonstone Press), That Infinite Roar (Gyroscope Press), Talking Me Off The Roof (Kelsay Books), The Moon Over My Mother’s House (Finishing Line Press), Simple Gestures (Texas Review Press), Women at the Onsen (Blue Light Press), and Somewhere in the Telling (Mellen Press). Simple Gestures won Texas Review’s  chapbook contest and Women at the Onsen won Blue Light Press’s chapbook contest. Kuntz has been nominated for four Pushcart Prizes and two Best of the Net Prizes. In 2024 she was awarded a Pushcart Prize. Her work has been published in Gyroscope Review, Roanoke Review, Third Wednesday, One Art, Sheila Na Gig, and other journals. She enjoyed long walks with her two dogs, Sage and Merlin, named for wisdom and magic, but unfortunately both dogs are running loose in doggy heaven, so now she walks alone with haiku angels. Learn more at lauriekuntz.myportfolio.com/home-1.

Endorsements

“Rich with layers of familial and personal experiences, Shelter in Place creates a unique blend of clarity and emotion. Kuntz’s powerful collection acknowledges that poetry can be both beautiful and honest, unflinching and tender. At its core, these poems address life, love, relationships, aging, and the everyday world and leaves readers mapping their own rooms of intimacy, wonder, and empathy to awaken their humanity.”
—Dorsía Smith Silva, author of In Inheritance of Drowning

“In Shelter in Place, Laurie Kuntz traces the fault lines of love, loss, and memory. Whether addressing moments of tenderness or pain, she entwines the personal and political into poems of quiet resilience, where each day shimmers with a kind of grace that bears witness to the wonders, however sweet or bitter, of a life (and love) well-lived.”
—Frank Paino, author of Dark Octaves

 In Laurie Kuntz’s Shelter in Place, we travel through snapshots of a life: birth, death, a marriage, gardens of tomatoes, kitchens of bread and mangos, a temple near Saigon, a booth in a diner where ‘lives flowed through a paper straw.’ These poems come together to create a timeline, as in ‘Round,’ ‘a circular substance—to move, travel, sail . . . a spin of history, our globe of years, and the hug . . . holding me
so I don’t fall off that flat edge of the planet.’ These poems feel like that hug—wise, wry, awe-filled, and grounding.
—Susan Vespoli, author of Therefore, Illuminated and One of Them Was Mine

“Laurie Kuntz’s unique worldview is showcased in this collection of powerful lyric narrative poems. As a true wordsmith, Kuntz’s artistry in Shelter in Place illustrates numinous reverence for the natural world, for family in all its iterations, for justice and for connection. The poet reminds the reader that we are part of the human family, and her often bittersweet work urges us to find a means of understanding and compassion for ‘the other.’ At the heart of each poem is a call to action and to collective healing. These poems are an antidote to what ails us. Always a teacher, activist, and advocate, her finely crafted poems in Shelter in Place transcend any perceived notion of separation between people, geopolitical borders, and boundaries.”
—Susannah Winters Simpson, author of Dharma of Death and Desire

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