We are very happy to announce the publication of Mary Kellogg’s fourth volume of poetry, This Time Of Life. This is the fourth volume of poetry for Mary, a wonderful poet and our great friend. The book costs $10 and is available now on Amazon.

The poems explore nature, childhood, love and aging.

Mary always knows where she is, she never runs or hides, and her poems are honest, graceful and profoundly touching.

The book came about because of Mary’s fierce commitment to her poetry – she very much wanted to see this volume published –  and our fierce commitment to our great friend.

Maria worked so hard to bring this book to publication.

This will be Mary’s last book of poetry, she has left the farm she loved so much and where she has lived for more than 30 years and is now living in an adult home in Granville, N.Y.

She worked on her poems for as long as she could and kept them in folder she kept with her and took with her everywhere, even when she was hospitalized after a fall and sent to a rehabilitation facility, where we visited her often.

The book will also be sold at our Open House on Columbus Day Weekend here at  the farm (Saturday and Sunday 11 to 4). I will be reading several of the poems from the book. Several other poets will be reading from their works as well.

I met Mary when she wrote me and asked to visit Bedlam Farm with some of her friends. We instantly became good friends and she showed me her poems, which she had written since she was eleven and had never shown to anyone, even her very beloved husband Richard.

I was in a bad place when I met Mary, but she, like Maria, saw past my troubles and into the better parts of me. She inspired and encouraged me, as I encouraged her.

I was  honored to be the first person to see these books and committed to publishing them. it was while we were working together on Mary’s books that Maria and I became close friends. Maria thought she could never put together a book like that, but she was wrong.

She could and did.

I was very excited to read these poems, and Maria and I set out to publish them.

Mary has been a seminal figure in our lives, the was the first person I told when Maria and I began seeing one another. “Good,” she said, “she’ll keep you in line. A perfect match.”

We love and admire Mary Kellogg so much, she has meant so much to us.

She is fiercely independent, she lived by herself on a 30 acre farm and thought nothing of being without power for weeks. She would not be patronized or coddled.

She loved every bit of nature, every animal, squirrel, deer or wildflower. The natural world was an enormous part of her life and her poetry. She is a wonderful poet, wise and insightful and very much in touch with her feelings.

Mary never surrendered to getting old or complained about it, she lived the life she wanted to live and her strength and compassion and beautiful spirit are very much in evidence in her poetry.

She rejected any form of old talk or the self-pity and narcissism so evident in our culture and on social media. Her books have sold thousands of copies, and I will be very proud to read some of these poems at our Open House.

Publishing this books with Mary has been one the most satisfying achievements in both of our lives, we are so happy to do it one more time.

There is a great lesson in Mary’s life. When I asked her why she had never shown these poems to anyone, she said she was afraid she would look foolish, she just needed some encouragement.

Done. I have learned to always encourage people whose creative sparks are burning fiercely inside of them, but which are hidden from the world, mostly because there is a man around who didn’t want them to burn so brightly.

An emotional audio, hard to speak.