Backstory about My Poem, “Ernestine”

Nancy Flynn Apostrophe Blog Archive, History Lessons, Publication News, Writing

In the summer of 2022, I started to read Heather Clark’s acclaimed new biography, Red Comet: The Short and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath. Seven pages into the first chapter entitled “The Beekeeper’s Daughter,” we learn that not only is there a multi-generational history of mental illness in Plath’s family but, unknown to her, her paternal grandmother, Ernestine, was committed to the Salem asylum by her husband, Theodore, in October 1916…

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Issue No. 4 kerning | a space for words now out!

Nancy Flynn Apostrophe Blog Archive, Publication News, Writing

My poem, “Ernestine” is included in these fine pages. I wrote this poem for the late Sylvia Plath after I went to visit a memorial in Salem, Oregon in early 2023. The cremains of Ernestine Kottke Plath, Sylvia Plath’s grandmother, were in a canister marked #177 (out of a total of 3423) at the Oregon State Hospital from her death in 1919…

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Hitting the Honorable Mention Jackpot

Nancy Flynn Apostrophe Blog Archive, Awards, Publication News

In the Spring 2023 Oregon Poetry Association poetry contests, I got three honorable mentions for some of my newer poems. Now to find publication homes for them! Here’s the skinny: Honorable Mention for “Of the Wild Bees Living in a Tree in the Alley” in the Wildlife Themed Category…

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