Author: Nan Byrne

Nan Byrne is a feminist poet and television writer. The author of two books, her poems have appeared in a variety of feminist journals including Phoebe: A Feminist Quarterly, Canadian Woman Studies, Earth’s Daughters, Critical Matrix: Princeton Journal of Women, Gender, and Culture, Poemmemoirstory, So To Speak, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of grants from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the Vermont Studio Center, and is currently at work on a documentary about Margaret Fuller, an early feminist and the first woman journalist.

On Chapin Street

December 29, 2016August 24, 2021 Nan Byrne

We sat bare assed and wetting our hunger condensing. In a cloud of Jack Daniels you dealt a final round. Drawing each card slowly from the deck, fingers placed like a gentle lover between the folds of the cut. Lifting each card into the growing fan of your hand, you Read more

Beauty

December 7, 2016December 6, 2016 Nan Byrne

Beauty is a death camp. The promise of pain. The last door that you close when you flee a fire. Beauty is a war. The broken heel. The sound of thousands of soldiers marching. Beauty is the chorus. The whining voice. The human table set before the cannibal. Beauty is Read more

An Accident of Love

November 20, 2016September 14, 2018 Nan Byrne

Once when I was young, I read a story in the newspaper. A man had gone on a picnic with his wife and children. They spent the day by the lake, playing in the water, throwing a football, and doing all the typical things that families do. At the lake, Read more