Poet Lore and The Writer’s Center present a FREE virtual chat about the craft of poetry! We’re joined by Kay E. Bancroft to discuss their debut collection, Bloodroom. Kay is in conversation with Emily Holland, poet and editor of Poet Lore, America’s oldest poetry journal.

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Kay E. Bancroft (they/them) is a queer nonbinary writer, poet, editor, educator, and artist based in Cincinnati, OH. They hold an MFA in Poetry from Randolph College, and a BA from the University of Cincinnati. You can find their writing in Poet Lore, Pleiades Journal, RHINO Poetry, Passengers Journal, The Rumpus, & more. Explore more at kayebancroftpoet.com.

About Bloodroom

“Do you identify with any of the above terminology? Occasionally. Some days they feel appropriate. Others, I resent these tools of our language. I reject and embrace, synchronously.”

Bloodroom is a howling, scorching debut collection of deftly formatted poetry—circling, and delicately probing, themes of familial debt, legacy, obligation, and the matriline. Through an index of past wounds and inherited scars, the speaker bleeds their histories together with the slow erosion of nostalgia. These poems offer an incisive and scalding interrogation of gender, yet are often unbearably tender—a swirling emulsion of grief and anger poured into an intricately technical and beautifully challenging mold. Each piece draws out a tragic, cyclical song of love and loss, resentment and admiration, as though drawing poison from a wound. Bancroft’s writing is meditative, cleansing, and compulsively readable: recounting a feminine childhood transformed into something monstrous until seen through a new lens. Bloodroom is a plea to identity, to the process of searching for purpose and of seeking certainty in a broken world.

If you need an accommodation for this event, please contact us at access@writer.org. We will attempt to fulfill all requests, but advance notice is necessary to arrange for some accessibility services.

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