Aftermath

The following review was sent to the author's family in hopes that it would be posted - as he did not have an Amazon accountPerhaps you can enter my review on my behalf. It follows."I am not a poetry fan. However, I had previously been smitten byKatherine Flannery Dering's biographical book on her brother's life (Shotin the Head) to the extent that it is the only non-fiction book I've everstayed up all night reading in order to finish it (and I'm 81 years oldwith a lot of reading behind me). So I tried out Katherine's poetrycollection "Aftermath." It is a thin little collection of jewels. Thepoems glide effortlessly from vivid real-life pictoral descriptions intoethereal contemplations. I do not hunt, but the poem dedicated to adeceased hunter sang with the same joy I experience as an almost dailywoodlands hiker. I have never been to the (nearby) cloisters, but thepoem describing the scenes from a warm summer day picnic outside theCloisters and the unique ancient stones within captured my interest somuch, I plan to visit the Cloisters the very first warm weekend thisspring. I am giving a copy of this marvelous little collection to thenearby still-grieving family of a young man who recently died of anoverdose. There is a timeless sensitivity in these pages which stills thesoul. An appropriate alternate title would have been "Benediction."Fred Cowles

Katherine Flannery Dering's first book of poetry is at once deep, accessible, and rich with imagery. Sorrow floats on the surface like the aftermath of a plane crash, leaving the reader to sort through the detritus--the author, our capable guide, saying and showing just enough to allow the reader to piece together a broken life."If it's over, it's over, I finally admit to myself," Dering writes. "I either grow legs or die here."Demonstrating her poetry chops, Dering definitely grew legs.

Katherine Dering’s chapbook illuminates the grief after the death of her nephew as a young man. She captures his skateboarding free spirit as well as his deadly heroin addiction through her powerful imagery. Her grief becomes a symbol for her struggle to find meaning in the process of aging. This chapbook asks more questions than it answers and leaves the reader with a profound sense of what it is to be a human being with dreams and inevitable losses.