In new book, poet Kwasny examines loss

“A lot of us don’t know that we need poetry,” says Melissa Kwasny. “Our attention spans have been shattered by screens, and it’s often hard to look up and out at our own lives. 

“I really do believe that poetry is the language of the interior life, maybe more explicitly than the other arts. It particularly asks us to pay attention to our senses, and it gives form to things that are often hard to articulate.”

Kwasny, a Jefferson City resident and former Montana Poet Laureate, released “The Cloud Path” this April, her seventh published collection of poems and an examination of personal loss amid global crises. Kwasny is scheduled to present selections from “The Cloud Path” in a public reading at the Boulder Public Library on May 28.