About Leah: Leah Dawdy is an emerging writer living in Spokane, WA. She wears many hats working at a local nonprofit called Spark Central, seeking exciting ways to bring art and literacy into their programs. Her poem, "Consider the Shape of Your Fist," won second place in a Masters Review contest and was anthologized in Best Small Fictions 2021.
Why I chose this poem: Kerry’s collection, In Search of Groovy, lays out a perpetual state of wonder and growth. I was drawn to this piece ("Strictly Ornamental") because of the way she grows up in it, passing time as easily as kids outgrow their shoes, and landing so passively as a teenager.
About Kerry: Kerry Rutherford 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.