Welcome to The Twice Curated Poetry of Mark Kessinger
Explore This Page:
Item #1
May 2025
Her This is a poem from Once in Love. It might also be called Ode to Absence.
It was written when two overlapping times of intense living, crashed.
Saving Ourselves Saving Ourselves was written in the aftermath of some hurricane; it’s name, less and less important. Its details, more and more a blur…
Canine Transcendentalism Dogs can hear things we people cannot: those trick whistles, earthquakes, distant everything. Their special knowledge of the world is communicated by a rare vocabulary of looks, barks…
Item #2
APRIL 2025
Crib Death These are trying times. Said famous writers, in every period. It’s true. They try person’s souls. While we deal with the particular worries of our age, our lives, our daily efforts, it is helpful to know…
Stump My students ask a lot about poetic devices. As if knowing a list of bones makes you a doctor. My advice is to forget about devices, and trust the truth of what you are saying. As you become…
Song of Eroticism There are moments of connection that build an intimate world, fiercely private, between two lovers. Moments where the everyday becomes inconsequential, eclipsed by the raw discovery of exploring another being.
Signal Core To the prepared mind, the world is beautiful and real. Yet there are times that the world is strange and mysterious, and sneaks up on you when you are half listening, or have one foot in some other world at the moment
March 2025
The Last Scout A trip out west brought the western landscapes right to my car windows. Hot air blowing in like oven blasts, and the sun seeming to pile up on the sheen of anything light colored in the rocks. I realized…
Nocturne in Decline Somewhere along the way, I became a rare male aquatic director at the YWCA. It was housed in the old YMCA building, which had been closed for a while and then leased out to a piano school…
Consider the Up Someone once asked me, “Where does poetry come from?”
I answered with another question: “Where is there no poetry at all?” No matter the tone, place, or circumstance, poetry is everywhere—waiting.
The Wax and Wane of the Lovers’ Golden Age We’ve all been there—either in real life or in our minds—caught in a golden moment, where the world feels like a playground. Safe. Fun. Boundless. And yet, somewhere in the distance, something shifts.
The Muse of Mardi Gras The high sun beat down on a red cowgirl hat, sunglasses, and a smile. Somewhere, bands swarmed, crowds thickened—but she had command of the parade in a way that traded appreciation.
February 2025
Broken Warp Everyone has a growing-up mythology—that period between childhood’s innocence and the realities of the world, when truth and stories blur together. It’s a time when…
Virgin Stench conjures an apocalypse of unannounced origin, revealing the world as we, its victims, would see it—only symptoms, unexplained. There is no guide to the end of the world, no…
Forecast We don’t know the relationship of things as fully as we need. Does weather affect people, or do people affect weather? Both? Neither? A sloppy mix? Likely. I listened to the conversation floating up, and it seemed that something was brewing there….
Borrowed Illumination Alberta Turner was a professor who had taken poets under her wing. One of them made sure I became another. She taught at Cleveland State University and took over its poetry center with this philosophy: “Whether they’re academic poets, street poets, language poets, or living-room poets, it really doesn’t matter. Whatever opens your soul, that’s fine.”
JANUARY 2025
Miller Theater Miller Theater is part poem and part pageant. It happened one night, and happened to me, when I made a living working in the grueling Houston heat all day…
Black Stetson It was a time of menace. A new disease was shaping up to be a global threat, settling into our hometowns for the first time. None of us knew what it meant—only that it felt like the worst of sci-fi movies…
The Longest Possible Light I had the sense of connecting, not to the sun, but to the light that, as far as we go, has always been there. I felt a sudden and odd affinity to the star glow, and all the…
Back-hauling Dharma For a few years, I rode the rails, doing my version of De Tocqueville, writing on the art of being free. I traveled hobo style, which meant Amtrak with no sleeper car…
Joe in Repair My foremost experience with the military has been as the son of a World War Two vet. Dad was twice wounded in combat. Once with machine gun fire piercing his helmet, another wound by a Nazi tank…
Visuals created using AI & I Generation — a poetic collaboration with machine learning.
INTRODUCTION
HELLO, and welcome to The Twice Curated Poetry of Mark Kessinger.
This is where I share a collection of my published poems. They’re called curated because they were chosen by others—editors, publishers, anthologists, judges, etc. This offers you confidence that the works presented here are of a certain quality. They are poems that you might be able to find elsewhere on the net, if you spend the time to track them down. I certainly encourage support of all the resources that helped encourage me.
These are also curated by myself. I go beyond selecting them for the works that they are, but also for the story they tell, or the insight they offer to poetry and writing in general. In this way, they are Twice Curated.
As I present these poems in postings, I add to each the information I might offer up at a reading. This can be background, technique, referents, or any introduction to the piece which may be helpful in enhancing the enjoyment of it. Sort of putting you in the front row of a live reading.
I am a poet living through—and writing about—many of the same events of your lifetime. This is not purple prose, hearts and flowers, arcane sonnets, or the esoteric ramblings of the obscure. It is not Ivy League elitism. It is real articulation of life that will touch on all things—musings of the heart, soul, body, and mind.
The poems themselves are wide-ranging in subject, voice, and tone. They come from thought experiments, and are of a contemporary style, most casual in tone—meaning very accessible. A few may be challenging. Some may not be your cup of tea. But most will be flavorful adventures.
If you are not yet a fan of poetry—try this.
If you are a student of poetry—this is good stuff (with X-ray glasses included!).
If you are an advanced reader or poet yourself—this is quality workshop, and, I hope, a pace car.
For your entertainment, enlightenment, and encouragement, I offer these postings, with more to come.
Each posting contains one previously published poem, and a fresh introduction, available only here.
A Few Quotes to Wet Your Imaginative Whistle:
“Poetry is the shorthand of civilization.” —msk
“Poetry is the DNA of human thought.” —msk
“If there is a short cut to wisdom, it is poetry.” —msk
“Poetry is a thought experiment set to music.” —msk
⚠️ WARNING:
Beyond this point
emotions will be touched
minds set ablaze…
About the Titles
These poems are not the stuff they fed you in school. And don’t judge them by the titles — those are portals, often returned to, for added insight.
The poems slip easily from the familiar into the unexpected, sharing discoveries, side by side with the author, as found on less traveled paths. Some are brief flashes. They linger, like Wonderland’s left-over enchantment. The titles may hint at one thing, but open into something else entirely — winking at you, but only once the poem has been shared. That’s the invitation.
Reading them is like taking Peter Pan’s hand — to fly, to soar, even to fall, through storms, but always landing safely. Linger where you like, and leave with what you wish. No one goes empty-handed.
BIO
Mark Kessinger was born in Huntington WV, attended college at Cleveland State University, lived in Oklahoma City, and has resided in Houston TX since 1984. He is a two-year recipient of a creative writing full scholarship from CSU, a founding member and past president of the Houston Council of Writers, and former editor of Voices from Big Thicket. His poetry has appeared in many publications and four anthologies. He had read his works at several festivals by invitation. He is the author of two collections of poetry.
Mark Kessinger is a civic minded, broadly experienced poet and instructor with a proven talent in the literary landscape. He has deep ties to Houston and the communication skills capable of meeting the rich cultural diversity of a large metropolis such as Houston.
His skills and experience in readings, workshops, teaching, and publishing can be matched with a background in public speaking, counseling, outreach and mediation to reach out and help at risk youth gain self-worth, confidence and better outcomes thru writing skills.
Published poet with university training in communication.
Experienced instructor in creative writing at adult education levels.
Diverse employment experience in community outreach, counseling.
Extensive mediation and advocacy experience.
Public speaking skills on multiple topics to wide range of audiences.
Studied under twice Pulitzer nominated poet Bruce Weigl.
Studied under Poets Alberta Turner and Leonard Trawick.
Attended Cleveland State University on full creative writing scholarship.
Won open local competition for volume of poetry entitled: Exploded View.
Won international open competition for volume of poetry entitled: The Book of Joe.
Taught adult writing classes at Lonestar Kingwood.
Edited Voices from big Thicket at Lonestar Kingwood.
Served as founding member and past president of Houston Council of Writers.
Guest presenter at Fort Concho Writer’s Conference.
Guest presenter at mediation training for Houston Police Department.
Organized writing workshop with local poets Gary Rosin and Dr. John Gorman.
Selected as juried poet by Houston Poetry Fest.
Published poet in open selection through many literary magazines.
Selected for one National and three regional anthologies.
INFLUENCES
Coming of age in Lorain County, on the southern shore of Lake Erie in farm-country Ohio just west of Cleveland, exposure to poetry remained almost exclusively the playground of rock and roll. A huge influence, to be sure. The explosion of psychedelia, hippie culture, the moon landing, Woodstock, the anti-war movement, the generation gap, computers—all crashed in upon us like the dawning of the Age of Aquarius. Or so we sang. We listened to the likes of Motown, hard rock, and rock operas. The birth of metal—and more—came to us almost as if lyrics were an imported literature.
In high school, I branched out to other writers, like Kurt Vonnegut and Richard Brautigan, whose poetry I was particularly drawn to. It showed me how to exceed the bounds of song lyrics. I read Yoko Ono. But there was also Bruce Springsteen, a poet of a rocker. And there were poets like John Ashbery and Richard Haas, among others I discovered through a local literary magazine called Field, available at the Oberlin College bookstore. It captivated me with its cover art of old postcards. I learned to learn from the page. I published my first poem, winning a national youth magazine contest. I was 16.
In college, I turned to more serious attempts and was lucky enough to meet a young soldier using his GI Bill to better himself in exactly the thing that had helped salve his soul from wartime’s worst. He was a kindred spirit from the same town, teaching the very craft I sensed existed in this purer, rarer form. Bruce Weigl was a working role model for what it meant to get your hands muddy in the deeper arts of wordcraft. We workshopped poetry; he gave me writing, editing, and practical advice, and pointed me toward my next mentor—one who had helped him: Alberta Turner.
They both shared Oberlin as their resident town, a few miles south of Lorain, on a road we once had to clear with a National Guard tank in winter. It was a famed college town, though Alberta had to go east to work at Cleveland State University. She saw me in her home at Oberlin, learned that I had put myself through community college, and encouraged me to apply for a creative writing scholarship. I attended on a full scholarship for my writing over the next two years. By then, my fate had carried me—and my family—off to Texas. Alberta has left us, but her books are still out there. Her lessons are still in me. Bruce and I have reconnected about what I once called “2 Poets, 100 Years of Poetry.“ He said he was going to steal that line. I hope he does. Bruce is still writing—and he’s one of the best.
📚 Alberta T. Turner (1919–2003)
Poet, Educator, Editor, Mentor
Alberta T. Turner was a formidable force in American poetry and pedagogy, known for her incisive intellect, sharp wit, and unwavering commitment to the craft of writing. Born in Pleasantville, New York, she pursued her education at Hunter College, Wellesley College, and Ohio State University, where she earned her Ph.D. Her academic journey led her to teaching positions at Oberlin College and, more prominently, at Cleveland State University, where she directed the Poetry Center and co-founded the influential journal Field in 1969 .
Turner’s contributions to poetry education are particularly noteworthy. She authored and edited several seminal texts aimed at demystifying the poetic process, including Fifty Contemporary Poets: The Creative Process (1977) and Poets Teaching (1980), the latter offering insights from 32 poets on imparting the secrets of their craft . Her own poetry, characterized by its exploration of domestic themes and feminist perspectives, is compiled in collections such as Beginning with And and Lids and Spoons.
Beyond her publications, Turner was renowned for her mentorship, often engaging with students well into the evening hours, fostering a vibrant community of writers. Her legacy endures through the countless poets she inspired and the standards she set for poetic rigor and authenticity.
Works by Alberta Turner
Alberta T. Turner was a prolific poet, educator, and editor. Her publications include:
Poetry Collections:
Lid and Spoon (1977)
A Belfry of Knees (1987)
Tomorrow Is a Tight Fist (2001)
Educational and Edited Works:
Fifty Contemporary Poets: The Creative Process (1977)
45 Contemporary Poems: The Creative Process (1985)
Responses to Poetry (1990)
These works reflect her dedication to both the creation and teaching of poetry.
🎖️ Bruce Weigl (b. 1949)
Poet, Memoirist, Educator, Vietnam Veteran
Bruce Weigl is a nationally acclaimed American poet whose work bears witness to war, loss, survival, and spiritual reckoning. Born in Lorain, Ohio, Weigl served in the Vietnam War from 1967 to 1968—an experience that permanently marked both his inner life and creative voice. His writing has become a touchstone in American war literature, reflecting not only trauma, but transformation.
He is the author of more than a dozen collections, including Song of Napalm and The Abundance of Nothing, the latter a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry in 2013. He has been nominated twice for the Pulitzer, affirming the enduring power and scope of his vision. His poems balance harrowing clarity with lyrical depth, exploring the line between memory and imagination.
In addition to his poetic achievements, Weigl is a devoted educator and mentor, having taught at institutions such as Oberlin College, Penn State, and most recently Lorain County Community College, where he continues to shape the next generation of writers—including veterans, for whom poetry often becomes a vital path of reintegration.
His memoir, The Circle of Hanh, traces a life shaped by war and a healing process shaped by language. Weigl has also contributed to international literary exchange through his translations of Vietnamese poetry, furthering his belief in poetry’s power to bridge deep divides.
Twice nominated for America’s highest poetry honor, and long revered for his generous teaching spirit, Bruce Weigl remains a voice of clarity, compassion, and transformation.
Bruce Weigl (b. 1949)
Bruce Weigl is an acclaimed poet and memoirist. His extensive body of work includes:
Poetry Collections:
Executioner (1976)
Like a Sack Full of Old Quarrels
A Romance (1979)
The Monkey Wars (1984)
Song of Napalm (1988)
What Saves Us (1992)
Sweet Lorain (1996)
Archeology of the Circle: New and Selected Poems (1999)
After the Others (1999)
The Unraveling Strangeness (2002)
Declension in the Village of Chung Luong (2006)
The Abundance of Nothing (2012)
On the Shores of Welcome Home (2019)
Among Elms, in Ambush (2021)
Memoir:
The Circle of Hanh: A Memoir (2000)
Edited and Translated Works:
Poems from Captured Documents (1994) – co-edited with Thanh T. Nguyen
Writing Between the Lines: An Anthology on War and Its Social Consequences (1997) – co-edited with Kevin Bowen
Mountain River: Vietnamese Poetry from the Wars, 1948–1993; A Bilingual Collection (1998) – co-edited with Nguyen Ba Chung and Kevin Bowen
Charles Simic: Essays on the Poetry (1997)
Weigl’s work often explores themes of war, memory, and the human condition, drawing from his experiences as a Vietnam War veteran.
Oh, and lately, I’ve been spending a lot of time riding trains.
PUBLISHED TITLES APPEARING IN TWICE CURATED POETRY
Across the Night
Image 2
Gone Winds Echo
Genre: Urban Arts
Stump
Whiskey Island Magazine
Barren Darkness
The Wax Paper Press
Puzzle Box
WILDsound Writing Festival
Virgin Stench
Whiskey Island Magazine
Cone of Certainty
Dragon Poet Review
Song of Eroticism
Whiskey Island Magazine
Nine Pieces of Fog
New Note Poetry
Her
California Quarterly
A Favorite Knife
Inlandia: A Literary Journey
Pray for Santa Fe
Tower Journal
Flying Things
Blue Heron Press
Ken Holds Barbie
Inlandia: A Literary Journey
An Attempted Diamond from the Bowel of a Tree
Voices from Big Thicket
Not Joes
Word’s Faire
Dad’s Surprising Age
TL Publishing Group LLC
Signal Falls, Nebraska
Mantis, Stanford Literary Journal
Black Stetson
Austin International Poetry Festival
Tell-Tale American Presence
Inheritance of Light anthology
Bath Tub Mary
Whiskey Island Magazine
Dead
From Both Sides Now anthology
Joe In Repair
The Pedestal Magazine
Memory Rehab
Houston Poetry Fest
Snap Echo
Image 3
Borrowed Illumination
Night Picnic Press
Survival Tricks of the Dead
Route 7
The Referendum of Survivors
Dragon Poet Review
The Muse of Mardi Gras
Night Picnic Press
Opium
Inheritance of Light anthology
From the Stage
Whiskey Island Magazine
Consider the Up
Inlandia: A Literary Journey
Backhauling Dharma
New Note Poetry
Angel Lust
Image 3
Signal Core
Inlandia: A Literary Journey
Fractal Fotos
The Onset Review
On the Program
Houston Poetry Fest anthology
Self-Portrait in a Landscape
Voices from Big Thicket
Anatomy of a Desert
Route 7
All Souls Day
Whiskey Island Magazine
Pinned Down
Inheritance of Light anthology
Scent of a Monster
Glass Mountain / Shards
The Wax and Wane of the Lovers’ Golden Age
Welter Journal, University of Baltimore
It
Mantis, Stanford Literary Journal
Through Wind
Image 3
Leap Year, February 27
Image 2
More Than Endless
The Human Touch Journal
The Blank
Voices from Big Thicket
Above the Landing
Apricity Magazine
3D Pain
Genre: Urban Arts
The Longest Possible Light
Voices of Cleveland
Absolute Recall
The Poets’ Edge Magazine
Stumbling Onto Texas City
Blacktop Passages
Writer of the Day 1-8-14
Poetry at Round Top
Nocturne in Decline
Whiskey Island Magazine
The Purloined Hearts of the Southern Command
Word’s Faire
The Angels Halogen and Quartz
Whiskey Island Magazine
Two Julys, So Far
The Lakeshore Review
Unbridled Instincts
The Olive Press
The Last Scout
Straylight Literary Magazine
The Giant Spiders from Mars
Whiskey Island Magazine
Kids
From Both Sides Now anthology
Crib Death
Image 2
Domino Head Stones
The Onset Review
So Far
Whiskey Island Magazine
Canine Transcendentalism
Mutabilis
Casandra Ball
Genre: Urban Arts
Saving Ourselves
In Layman’s Terms
Crystal Origami
Red Ogre Review
Vital Stats
Word’s Faire
Orbit
Image 3
Hello from Here
Progenitor Arts and Literary Journal
Broken Warp
Whiskey Island Magazine
Remember to Re-regard
Glass Mountain / Shards
A Pattern Sets In
Glass Mountain / Shards
Desert in a Bottle
Route 7
Musery a place to nurse your Muse.
Feel like a poet. Be in your moment.
A curated series of poetic artifacts—limited-run mugs that look great on your desk, feel good in your hand, and offer a strong flavor of inspiration. Each design is a timeless icon, offered only for a short time, and created with a poet’s eye for detail.
WHY THE SHOP
I come from a long line of educators.
My mother taught grade school and Head Start. My father taught history and government, and kept score for the school teams. My Uncle Ted was a school principal. My Aunt Peggy, a journalism professor. Cousin Alice worked with students from the disability community.
But further back were craftsmen. One ancestor was a tinker, traveling mountain roads to mend what couldn’t be replaced and couldn’t do without. Another was a storekeeper on the city outskirts, running a grocery with a home above it. I only know them through stories—lean on detail, rich in impression.
When I began sharing my published poetry online—first with Patreon, then Substack, and now with my own website—it was with the identity of a writer and educator, bringing workshop-honed lessons to readers of poetry.
But the business of poetry met the business of online commerce:
build a website, and the storefront arrives with it.
As I explored the possibilities, the creative engines kicked in. A few playful ideas turned into a dozen realized pieces. It seems mugs may be the new forefront of poetry—snippets, sound bites, and quiet affirmations churned into billboards you can hold in your hand.
So I began inventing products by incarnating words into tokens, hoodoos, and totems—objects you might sit on your desk to watch over you while reading, writing, or… musing.
I hope they bring you comfort, inspiration, and good vibes.
It turns out I wasn’t writing with craftsmen and shopkeepers in mind—
but they seem to have come from deep in the family tree to land squarely in my karma.
Sesame Satori
One of my grandfathers—
my father’s father—
is a man I never met.
Can’t say I never knew him,
as there were stories.
Because he died young,
there just weren’t a lot.
He was successful to the point
that they named a street after him,
where he ran the corner store
and grocery in a mountain town
in southern West Virginia—
an address that makes the compass spin.
When he died, he left his wealth
to his widow, who ran the place
till it burned to the ground.
The bank soon foreclosed, and Dad
was sent to an orphanage
to be fed. Not raised.
Fast forward to now—
or someplace near now—
and I am selling my songs,
like my grandfather’s father:
a tinkerer, a mender of old
busted things belonging to people
too poor to raise their own kids.
I hang my digital shingle
on the modern marketplace,
in a luminous draw of
shopping moths, hungry
for my tiny bits of enlightenment.
They come.
And as they do,
I realize—as I make mugs for sale
with ideas adorning—
that I have canned my own sustenance
to share, and sell.
And so, I have my own store.
Such a quick slip
from poet to shopkeep.
I have become my father’s father’s story.
Which is the surprise—
but not the shockwave.
That is when I realize
I have been listening to this
all my life, in an unrecognized way.
I hear myself emerge
in this unexpected fractal
of generational generation
from the children’s show
theme song, forever in
my family life—
can you tell me how to get
to sunny days,
and Kessinger street.
