Natalie Kenvin is 58 year-old Chicagoan whose work shows a mature, persistent mind. She often re-reads her thoughts from paper to realize all their ramifications. She constantly challenges herself by revising... re-reading... revising... perfecting.

Kenvin is a product of Pennsylvania, and presently lives in Uptown. She is strong in opinion and ebullient in character. She is often the first person in a room to get that certain spark in her eye when an ironically funny situation is about to break loose. To be there and catch the spark is a delight.

Kenvin is a lone wolf of sorts in the literary world, though not unconnected. In the 80s, she enjoyed the company of David Sedaris and Deborah Pintonelli in a writers' circle. Kenvin's poetry is not always the easiest read in town. She has emotional latitude, and people who expect serious literature to be "serious" in all regards will be frustrated trying to shoe-horn her text to fit their expectations. I try to remember that spark in her eye, and not get suckered into taking everything she says at face value.

Along with Carolyn Koo and San Juanita Garza, Kenvin was co-editor of No Roses Review (1993-95). She won an NEA Award (1995), an Illinois Artist in the Schools Award (1998-2000), and many other awards and recognitions.

With such experience at her side, I often feel obliged to give Kenvin a second reading just to corroborate (or sometimes deny) my suspicions. She is not a confessional poet, though she can tell a good story. She is not an "I/me" poet, though she can relate personal episodes in her life in highly composed verse. She's not afraid including feminist themes in her poetry, but she would be the last person who'd call herself a didactic feminist. Her work is often dense in implication aand metaphor, so much can often slip past without the reader noticing it... until a second or third reading.

Some of Kenvin's work is autobiographical, but her depictions of extreme states of mind or behavior are much more than anecdotes. She reflects on those moments with a respect that carefully distances her from these moments and still draws the reader closer.

Kenvin is an oblique thinker but not a "first thought/best thought" writer. On several occasions we've crossed the subject of control. Poetry can't be poetry without control, according to Kenvin, as it's the writer's prerogative to consider every response the reader may get from the text. While this principle gives any writer a lot to ponder, it also explains how the relationships in Kenvin's poetry beat chance's odds.

Also, I've found that while she is a text author, Kenvin has a voice for performance which she underestimates. In this regard, she reminds me of Carolyn Forché, who's quick to dismiss herself as a performance poet in spite of her great voice. The point of the poetry is in the reading, and that's pretty much all the author expects the reader to want; but if you happen to hear a reading by the author, you're in for a real treat. Not coincidentally, Forché has written the foreword to "Bruise Theory" (BOA Editions Ltd., 1995), the volume in which most of these Book of Voices poems originally appeared in print. Like voices, like minds.

And with that in mind, I invite you to browse her written and spoken words.

- Kurt Heintz, e-poets network