by Kendra Poole | Jun 17, 2016 | Peru, South America, Stories
October 28, 2015 Today I climbed Machu Picchu Mountain. Yesterday I drank about seven hundred gallons of chilcanos and made out with a Colombian. We had a fine time, but today I was glad to be left alone to wander. The romanticized vision I had of experiencing the...
by Kendra Poole | Jun 15, 2016 | Africa, Stories
July 27, 2014 On the ferry ride over to Robben Island, I rejoiced in the good weather. The boat climbed and summited the swells, launching us into each trough with a burst of exciting, frothy sea. I clamored to the edge, as close to the water – and its amatuer mosaic...
by Kendra Poole | Jun 15, 2016 | North America, Stories, USA
Last week I quit my job in the Senate to become a writer. I left Washington – dumped my things in a storage unit – and now I live in a backpack and am in Chicago. I’m attending a lecture at Northwestern, learning about May 27, 1977 in Angola, and I am considering...
by Kendra Poole | Jun 14, 2016 | Europe, Poetry, Turkey
In Istanbul, the owner of the pashmina shop said, “The body is like a gift between husband and wife.” He said the burqa, the hijab, were like human wrapping paper. I take scarves from the shelf, unfold and refold some, drape the red one over my head, align the...
by Kendra Poole | Jun 14, 2016 | Africa, Morocco, Poetry
Walking in Marrakech An afternoon coated with raw meat, curry, urine, leather, donkey shit. Multilingual chatter of the souk: so many bells and wagon wheels, motorcycles and metal welders and, in the thick of it all, the hiss of a cobra. Henna designs spilling up...
by Kendra Poole | Jun 14, 2016 | Africa, Stories, Tanzania
Wednesday, November 13, 2013 Excerpted from the online blog I kept while working with the 2Seeds Network in Tanzania. En Route It smells like gasoline, sweat, and ginger. “Unaenda wapi? Unaenda wapi?” Where are you going? Where are you going? Twenty-some people...
by Kendra Poole | Jun 14, 2016 | Bulgaria, Europe, Stories
July 25, 2011 One hundred and fifty feet. One hundred and fifty gallons. One hundred and fifty years. One hundred and fifty kisses. One hundred and fifty pages. One hundred and fifty reasons. But when you’re about to jump, the only thing you know to be true is that...
by Kendra Poole | Jun 14, 2016 | Honduras, North America, Stories
A Honduran summer night is the soundtrack of childhood’s most imaginative dreams and nightmares. In the absence of strained and steady city sounds, everything in rural El Espinal makes noise: a grasshopper’s wings against the humid air, the neighbor’s broom brushing...
by Kendra Poole | Jun 14, 2016 | Europe, Greece, Poetry
after Sappho* Stop your sighs now, friend. Comb your hair, mend your blouse, and quit pandering for pity. I have seen your trembling, knuckles all knotted in nerves. Almost nothing...
by Kendra Poole | Jun 13, 2016 | North America, Poetry, USA
Afterward, we worm into the basement of a Mr. Ted Kessler. He watches us pick apart relic from rubble, relent- less relievers, subduing a hoarseness of tone. Here is his moldy rocking chair. Did he sit here once? To watch the sea romance the sand? We ask now: Does...
