Hi, I’m glad you’re here

Who I am…

Kendra is a poet, maker, and essayist living in Richmond Virginia. She is the author of three poetry collections: I Am Not Trying to Hide My Hungers from the World (BOA Editions, 2021), My Dinner with Ron Jeremy (Third Man Books, 2016) and Thieves in the Afterlife (Saturnalia Books, 2014), selected by Yusef Komunyakaa for the 2013 Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize. She is also co-author of the poetry chapbooks Graffitied Heart with Ellen Bass, and Low Budget Movie with Tyler Mills. She recently curated Poem-a-Day for the Academy of American Poets, and has received awards and fellowships for her poems from MacDowell, Millay, Split This Rock, and a 2019 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship.

 Kendra began writing poetry as a child and first experienced censorship when she was 10 years old (she read a poem about saving the environment at school assembly and had to take out “damn.”) Since then, she has continued to write politically engaged poems, studying at Sarah Lawrence College, and performing at venues across the country, including the Newport Folk Festival. She has also continued to experience censorship for writing poems about the body, sexuality, and desire. In 2009 her poetry studies took her to Nashville Tennessee where she went on to write and participate in a vibrant arts community for 15 years. During her time in Nashville, she met and studied with music writer Peter Guralnick who inspired her to begin exploring music writing and personal essays.

 In 2017 Kendra published her first essay in Bitch Magazine and has since studied and written about women music icons from the 90s. Her most recent essay is about Britney Spears and learning to mother oneself. She has collaborated with record labels such as Third Man Records and co-founded the multi-genre literary magazine Nasbille Review.

She loves to work with her hands and is currently studying piano, learning to sew her own clothes, and taking it all day by day.