About Heather: Heather Tillery is a deep believer of the wisdom of the natural world, and enjoys weaving her personal narrative with that of the earth. Her poetry appears in Prairie Schooner, Cagibi Journal, I-70 Review and other publications. She lives in Spokane, Washington with her husband and three children, and teaches improv and creative writing to youth and adults.
Why I chose this poem: Kerry lived with such wonder, joy and love right until the end. The longing manifested in this poem, "Kodiak Island," the attention to the earth around her, the willingness to merge with the elements, is why Kerry was so beloved as a friend of mine but also a fellow poet, and why she was so deeply important to this world. This willingness to lay down in the stream, to become the earth by seeing the earth is how she will remain; how she will be remembered.
About Kerry: Kerry Rutherford (1948–2024) was a third-generation Washingtonian. A self-proclaimed “wandering hippie chick” in her youth, she went on to work in a wide range of jobs, from cannery worker to elementary school teacher to grant writer, and lived in a variety of places—Alaska, Indiana, Ohio, Seattle, and, finally, Spokane, the place where she felt she’d found her true home.
She earned three master’s degrees in her 70s—nonfiction, poetry, and history—and had a startling knowledge of astrology. Her ability to make and keep friends across all of the usual boundaries of age, gender, class and religion brought countless strangers together in community. She had one child. She is the author of In Search of Groovy, available at Auntie’s Bookstore.