Charley Allen-Dunn is a woodturner, animal-lover and website director for Murray State University. But she is also a poet. And she has just released her first book of poetry, "The Scar It Leaves" through Finishing Line Press. Allen-Dunn sat down with us in the studio to talk about her work.
She wrote her first poem in 4th grade, "This is going to tell you how old I am - there was a competition to write poems about Desert Storm. And I wrote one that ended up being picked at my elementary school."
Since then, she's written many more poems and even majored in poetry at Murray State. But, of course, writing a book has been a dream.
She views "The Scar It Leaves" as being divided into three themes, or sections:
1) Generational Trauma and Addiction - how the things that happen in your youth can shape who you are as an adult.
2) Love and Relationships - the choices we make and how the path can lead a place you never thought you might get to.
3) Love, But in Grief - A remarkable person she met who lost his wife took her on a walk through the woods. Being in his house and walking with him, she felt she knew his late wife too.
"There's one poem that talks about... a scar on your hand and how it's always there. And you notice a lot when it's first there. But then, it just becomes a part of you and you don't notice it at all anymore. And so I think about how all of these events and moments build up in your life and just become a part of you."
The book is available on Amazon and other major online retailers, but Allen-Dunn also is hoping folks will buy local at bookstores like Bolin Books in Murray and is trying to get some copies to local libraries.
She hopes people will find something in the book they will relate to. Someone once told her that, "poetry is about what you bring to it". Poems can mean different things at different times in your life. "So if you're grieving, then I hope the poems about grief resonate with you and help you feel a little bit understood and seen."
There is a free book-signing and reading at the Murray Art Guild on Friday, February 2nd from 6 to 8 p.m. and all are welcome.
At what point do you stop reaching for the flame?
One of the first words the children in my family learn is “hot.”
Point to the steam rising from the cup – hot,
point to the stove glowing angry red – hot,
sausages sizzling on sticks – hot,
candles dripping wax on the cake just before we start to sing – hot.
Hot. HhhhhhoT.
Drag it out,
blow into the h,
let it breathe and spread,
then a quick ah and clip.
Stop hard with the T.
HhhhhhhhoT
Let the h rumble like the purr of a motor,
puff your cheeks around the o at 10 and 2,
now slam the brakes. Throw your arm out.
T
Let the h build like the heat as you move your hand closer,
warmer, warmer, then touch it. The sharp inhale,
the rapid recoil of the T.
A blister already beginning to bubble. We feel the heat,
we grow to expect the burn, we learn and remember
the sharp sting that doesn’t fade for days.
The scar it leaves.
But, still, we light the match. We gather our kindling
and blow gently, smile as it catches, watch it build,
build,
build,
build until
it snatches the air from our lungs. Dancing, swaying,
crackling, beckoning, devouring,
luring us in until
the only thing left is ash.Charley Allen-Dunn
