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Kathryn A. Cullen


(the woman behind the dexterous toes)

Notes From the Alley, poems by Kathryn A. Cullen: For ten years, from 2008 until three days before her sudden, unexpected death on December 29, 2018, Kathryn Ann Cullen lived a quiet, unassuming life in an 1870’s hotel-turned-apartment building, tucked between the busy main street and a subdued alley in downtown St. Peter, Minnesota. Quiet, she teaches us in this collection of poems, is not a synonym for reticent or inactive, but instead, attentive, mindful, even prayerful.

Fueled by strong coffee and a sharp-focused lens on the world, Kathryn crafted poetry and short stories from this tiny alley-side apartment, though her love affair with words stretched long and wide. Evidence of her rich internal life lives in the piles of spiral-bound notebooks and hard-covered journals, an app on her phone, social media posts, and scattering of cryptic lists and scribbled notes left in the wake of her death. 

The roots of Kathryn’s poems and short stories burrow deep, drawing upon experiences from her teenage and young adult years in the 1960’s. They wind and trail across the decades, to Mankato, San Francisco, with quick side trips to Hawaii, France and Mexico, before returning to Minnesota, lingering in Minneapolis, back in Mankato before settling into the shadowy alley in St. Peter. As her life progressed, she added texture and depth to her work, entwining past with present. Themes of politics, current events and the natural world melded with childhood and family images. A fierce economy of words, an urgency in tone and form emerged in later work, a marked departure from her earlier wandering nature, as though telling us that time is of essence—a prophetic warning to pay attention, get involved, keep creating even when you grow weary from the heaviness of the world. Other than the lightest of editing for continuity and clarity, the poems presented in this collection are as they were found: artifacts of a poet’s life, a gift for the ages.

- Michael, Kurt, Jennifer, Jill, & Gretchen (Kathryn’s children)

Learn more: https://kathrynanncullen.com/