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National Poetry Month's Feature: Poet Brenda Bunting



Poet’s Bio: Brenda Bunting is a socially conscious Poet, Author, Spoken Word Artist and Workshop Facilitator. She was the featured poet on Sojourn with Words with Poet Laureate Sistah Joy in February 2020 on PGCTV local cable channel 76. She was the 2019 winner of the UUCS Jazz Poetry Slam in Sterling, VA and was most recently published in, “The Daily Abuse” Collection 2018. 

 A former Poet in Progress through the DC Commission on the Arts and the Humanities she is also a life member of the Kentucky State Poetry Society (KSPS). Brenda is a volunteer speaker for RAINN and University of Kentucky alumna with her B.A. in English. Brenda advocates for the therapeutic use of writing poetry for mental and emotional wellness and healing from traumatic events. Her book, "Poems of Love and Violence In between Life and Death 2nd Edition" is available for purchase on Amazon.com. 
DL: What are some of your reflections during the COVID-19 pandemic?
BB:  Well, 2020 a year of perfect vision began with an unprecedented indiscriminate pandemic. We are so consciously aware of our impact and how others may impact us just by breathing. As an artist and environmental advocate, I am one of the many featured artists at Earth day online. https://www.earthday.org/artist-gallery/ I mourned as the Amazon burned because of fires deliberately set by those wanting to profit from the land. Known as the, "lungs of the earth" caring stewards, myself included, protested but it fell on deaf ears. We have an intimate relationship with the trees that clean our air. I think worldwide more than ever people are remembering what is truly essentially important. We breathe collectively and listen to the words that come forth from the darkness or the light. 

DL: In celebration of National Poetry Month (April), can you share with us a few of your poems?
BB: Sure! I’d like to share two poems:


The Corona Chronicles by Brenda Bunting 



We wear the masks over masks. Walk the empty and abandoned the former that teemed with the gritty populace. We engage in strange turns of oppositions one from another. We must move away. Our polar ambitions wandering through the page turns of this new novel. Nobody in our lifetime ever wrote like this before. At the beginning of the twentieth century came the influenza plague. An efficient pandemic machine across the globe titled Spanish flu. The rampage recorded black and white horrors between history pages had evoked only the mildest emotion or curiosity. Now comes all the color the high definition bombardment and amplified pictures of microscopic killers. What invisible waltzes on the skin of those vulnerable? What assaults egregious? The reassuring have some comforts whole and others hollow. This is in the beginning of the twenty first century and children still want to play outside. But no -- we are social distancing. Dogs want to be petted. We withdraw instinctively from one another. Social Distancing only six feet away but I will love you still from afar.


The Subduction Zone by Brenda Bunting 


I crawled out of my own trembling. An unsteady baby sliding on the shared tears I drown in when I hear the news. Of this earth I do not recognize shifting between the spikes of coronavirus. We are all vibrating right now with the vibrations that live inside and out of us. Energy vibrates. We are all lights right now with the light that lives inside and outside of us. Remember the light. It is speaking.


We are stepping forward hurtling into unknown zones of invisible labeled danger. What do we wear? What are our messages? Faith or fear? Do we see the moment by moment good that resurrects in the mourning times for those who have passed? Will the greatness of the sacrifices lift us up to a higher level of consciousness a better awareness of the good we can provide? I squeeze into a small space of hope. For a time, I will live there.

DL: Where can folks learn more about you and your poetry?
BB: My contact information is listed below:

DL: It’s been a pleasure having you here with us today. I know my readers will enjoy your poetry.
BB: Thanks so much for this opportunity to share my work!








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