{"id":5777,"date":"2025-12-01T23:02:51","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T03:02:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/?page_id=5777"},"modified":"2025-12-01T23:02:51","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T03:02:51","slug":"barren-keith","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/fall-2025-digital-lit\/barren-keith\/","title":{"rendered":"Barren \u2014 Jennifer Keith \u2014 Fall 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Vantage Point by BEE LB<\/p><\/div>\n

Barren<\/h1>\n

Jennifer Keith<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

said of dirt \u201ctoo poor to produce much or any\u2026\u201d
\n<\/span>no clay feet: airborne in a dust devil
\n<\/span>no place for light
\n<\/span>or holding water,<\/span><\/p>\n

was the bitter climate without or within?
\n<\/span>some curse, tear-salted.<\/span><\/p>\n

all that survived was that hollow thing called potential,
\n<\/span>swelling, with a life of its own
\n<\/span>to monstrous proportions,
\n<\/span>its agonies screaming for attention
\n<\/span>throwing bloody, broken tomatoes
\n<\/span>at what a long-dead voice
\n<\/span>still calls failure.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jennifer Keith<\/b>\u2019s poems have appeared in <\/span>Sewanee Theological Review<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>The Free State Review<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>Fledgling Rag<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>Unsplendid<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>Best American Poetry 2015<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>JMWW<\/span><\/i>, and elsewhere. Keith was a finalist in the 2021 Erskine J. Poetry Prize from <\/span>Smartish Pace<\/span><\/i>. Her first full-length book of poems, <\/span>Terminarch<\/span><\/i>, won the 2023 Able Muse Book Award. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland where she plays bass for the rock band Batworth Stone.<\/span><\/p>\n

BEE LB<\/b> is an array of letters, bound to impulse; a writer creating delicate connections. they have called any number of places home; currently, the space beneath a collapsed ceiling on unceded Anishinaabe land in Michigan. they have been published in <\/span>FOLIO<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>Figure 1<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>The Offing<\/span><\/i>, and <\/span>Harpur Palate<\/span><\/i>, among others. their portfolio can be found at <\/span>twinbrights.carrd.co<\/span><\/a> and they can be found at <\/span>patreon.com\/twinbrights<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Back to issue<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Barren Jennifer Keith   said of dirt \u201ctoo poor to produce much or any\u2026\u201d no clay feet: airborne in a dust devil no place for light or holding water, was Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3630,"featured_media":0,"parent":5625,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5777"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3630"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5777"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6032,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5777\/revisions\/6032"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}