Karen Craigo was the poetry editor at a couple of journals where my poems have appeared, and we communicate via Facebook but have never met in person. A benefit of Facebook, which I generally deplore, is connecting with people whose work inspires me.
Today, four of Karen's poems are available online in the current issue of The Summerset Review. (Karen is the poet laureate of Missouri.) To read all four, click Next to the left of each poem.
She lands the poems, the last lines absolutely guttingly perfect, in each. She writes about personal experience in ways I want to learn from. For instance, she reported her son's first basketball practice experience right after it happened on her Facebook page, and in one poem has turned it into a revelation about our vulnerability, our endearing belief in continuing to try, and about God's view of human frailty.
Craigo is a genius at the kind of alchemy that art makes of life. These poems treat us tenderly.