Slamming Open the Door

On my Walk for Fitness this morning (I love to call it that, as if it's a charitable event... which in a way, it is - the charity receiving the benefit is my ass), I listened to Fresh Air on NPR. The guest was poet Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno, who recently published her first book, a collection of poems that record her reactions to her daughter's murder and its aftermath.

Her daughter, Leidy, was only 21 years old and a recent nursing school graduate about to embark on her career when she was strangled with a telephone cord by her estranged boyfriend.

The collection, entitled Slamming Open the Door, was awarded the Beatrice Hawley Award and two of its poems were nominated for the prestigious Pushcart Prize. Its content reveals an honest, and at times shocking, exploration of the range of emotions experienced by the poet, beginning with the moment her phone call to her daughter went unanswered and including her reactions to coming face to face with the mother of her daughter's murderer.

If you have a chance, check out the podcast here:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111218053

The poems are compelling and beautifully written; Sheeder Bonanno is a high school English and Creative Writing teacher in Pennsylvania.