Recent Poems & Essays
On Effie Smith Ely
Restoring a Writer’s Legacy: Leatha Kendrick on the Two Effie Smiths
How did poet Effie Smith Ely’s work become misattributed to Effie Waller Smith? In her research, Leatha Kendrick uncovers the truth through archival sleuthing, ancestral research, and manuscript analysis.
Listen to Leatha Kendrick’s conversation on the Sally’s Diaries podcast.
Forgotten Poet Untangling the Publications of Effie Smith Ely and Effie Waller Smith
Explore the original research that shaped this conversation:
In her article “Effie Smith Ely: Forgotten Poet: Untangling the Publications of Effie Smith Ely and Effie Waller Smith” Leatha Kendrick clears up authorial confusion over poet Effie Smith Ely whose work has been misattributed to Effie Waller Smith in publication.
Through ancestral research, archival sleuthing and manuscript analysis, Kendrick works to correct false accreditation, uncovering the true authorship and voice of Effie Smith Ely.
Two poems in Good River Review
A locust rattles, sputters,
its first dog-day shriek
rising, stuttering away
like a rusty mower.
“Mercy” in Appalachian Journal
Whatever I notice increases.
My grandson teaches me
a ball can race ahead of us
across the lawn. We chase it
at dusk, like moths
eager for its incandescence.
Four poems in Still: The Journal
The narrow stall recedes like Van Gogh’s room
in Arles. Where his single bed would be, a ewe,
well-muscled, dirty white, thrusts into the space
and stares us down –her flat face a wedge
between us and a slight, gray-mottled lamb
nearly hidden in the bedding straw.
Recent Appearances
Leatha reads from And Luckier at the Accents Book Club.
Watch an Accents Radio show interview and reading with poems written in response to the pandemic.