Kristin Berkey-Abbott
Kristin Berkey-Abbott
A poet, a scholar, a teacher, a wanna-be mystic--always wrestling with the temptation to run away to join an intentional community--but would it be contemplative? social justice oriented? creative? in the mountains? in the inner city?--may as well stay planted and wrestle with these tensions and contradictions here, at the edge of America.
August 2026
September 2026
October 2026
Top Words
- sunday
- farewell
- saturday
- fragments
- pumpkin
- full
- poem
- satisfying
- alternate
- quilting
- labor
- woes
All posts (37)
Here we are on the last day of August. As always, the month has zoomed by, and I feel a looming despair that I didn't get any writing done. But let me do a more honest record keeping of my poetry writing:-- 5 rough drafts of varying degrees of completeness.-- 2 rough drafts revised to intermediate status.-- One of...
At one point yesterday evening, as I began to despair at ever getting my huge quilt done, I thought of my grandmother. When I asked her to teach me to quilt, she snorted and said, "Why would you want to quilt when you can just go to Wal-Mart and buy a blanket for six dollars?"That price tells you how long ago it...
I've spent part of the summer finishing the process of putting together the quilt top for the quilt I hoped to be assembling during Summer 2026 Quilt Camp at Lutheridge. We've also been going back and forth on the size of the bed we plan to have once we move into the Spartanburg fixer-upper house we bought back in...
And now, a day after Dolly Parton's death, comes news of the death of Tim Curry. Like so many, my earliest memories of Tim Curry are as Dr. Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I didn't see that movie until my sophomore year of college, but I was aware of it in high school.I was a drama club kid, so of...
I'm as sad as everyone about the death of Dolly Parton. Let me record a few thoughts:--I'm glad that I was a child in the 70's, that my mom listened to A.M. radio, which meant I heard all kinds of music, including Dolly Parton's songs, both old and new. The radio stations of my childhood played anything, so you...
Yesterday was one of those teaching days where I had plans going into the day, with back up plans because I wasn't sure the original plans would work, and then I went with the original. Let me explain, in case it's useful:--I had planned to do peer editing with my English 101 class. I got rough drafts by e-mail, and...
Yesterday, I made this Facebook post which sums up my Sunday morning:"We had a great morning at Faith Evangelical Lutheran Church, where I preached on Matthew 16 and ended my sermon by asking us to think about how our lives themselves are gospels that testify to the identity of Jesus and his role in our lives. We...
One of the beautiful things about social media is the inspirations that might come on any random day, and not even from people we know. This morning, a post from a human I don't know (Jim Hankins) came across my Facebook feed. Here's what the larger quilt looks like:I might have scrolled on by, if I hadn't read the...
I've written before about using objects as writing prompts (see this blog post for explanation and pictures). Usually I spread objects out on a table and have students pick one. We do a variety of types of writing: description, writing in the voice of the object, free associating to access memories based on the...
I thought about making a Facebook post that said "Endorsed!" But most people wouldn't know what I meant--they'd rightly ask, "Endorsed by whom?"On Wednesday, I met for an Endorsement panel for Candidacy in the Southeastern Synod for the ELCA, the more inclusive expression of the Lutheran church in the U.S. I had...
The past few days have been a good poetry days, in a more well-rounded sense--by which I mean, I've been doing more than just writing down a line or two. Let me capture what a good stretch of poetry days looks like:--A few months ago, I had an idea for a poem, Jesus buying a fixer-upper of a house. I didn't do...
I feel a bit frazzled today. Let me record some snapshots:--I meet with my Candidacy Committee today for an Endorsement Panel. I have completed the huge writing project, and the people involved know me on some level. I'm not nervous, exactly, but I'm taking it seriously. During my upcoming walk, I'll try to...
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