B. Fulton Jennes ("Barb") Jennes spent the first 25 years of her career as an advertising copywriter and freelance corporate writer and editor. After volunteering to run creative writing programs at her daughter's elementary school, she decided to pursue a teaching degree, leading to a 16-year second career as a public-school English teacher.

Upon retiring in 2017, Jennes returned to her first love: poetry. She is Poet Laureate of Ridgefield, Connecticut, where she also serves as poet-in-residence at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum. Her poems have appeared in The Comstock Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Connecticut River Review, The Night Heron Barks, Tar River Poetry, SWIMM, Anti-Heroin Chic, Pareidolia Literary, Extreme Sonnets II, and many other journals and anthologies. Her poem “Glyphs of a Gentle Going” was awarded the 2022 Lascaux Prize and is a nominee for the 2023 Pushcart Prize. Jennes’s collection Mammoth Spring was a finalist for the 2021 Two Sylvias Wilder Prize and also the  Small Harbor Press Laureate Prize. Her collection Blinded Birds (Finishing Line Press, 2022) was named Winner of the 2022 International Book Awards in the poetry chapbook category; “Ghazal: For a Wild Child, Grown” – a poem from that collection – is also a nominee for the 2023 Pushcart Prize.

Barb lives in Ridgefield with husband Chuck. Blinded Birds is available at Bookshop.com or any local independent book seller. Barb's 2023 resolution is to try her hand at writing short stories.

EPISODE EXTRAS

• Barb Jennes on Facebook


• Helix Literary Magazine Interview


• Moth storytelling video


• Blinded Birds - Finishing Line Press