Poetry Reading at The Soup Shop

Katherine Chantal and Colleen Redman will be presenting a poetry reading at the Soup Shop on Sunday, June 26 at 2 pm. Located at 7360 Floyd Highway in Copper Hill (just beyond Check Elementary School), the one-stop Soup Shop is the inspiration of owner Susan Huff, who supports local farmers by using locally purchased farm fresh ingredients in her soups and other menu items.

Chantal will be reading from her book Poetic Memoir of a Nascent Senescent: Poems from My Sixties and Redman will read from her book Objects Are Closer Than They Appear in a call-and-response conversational reading style. New poems will also be included in the mix.

Chantal and Redman are longtime friends with two distinct voices, yet the topics they cover intersect and are complimentary. The reading is one in a series from the poets’ Grief and Relief Soulful Aging Tour, presented at local venues as an honest sharing that has been known to draw laughter and some tears.

Chantal, a ceremonialist who guides life passages, including weddings and deaths, says “More and more it is becoming a life living with and through until death. Reflections of what that means is going deeper and quieter.” Her book’s author’s note states that she is “walking into her elder years with wonder and curiosity.”

Redman believes that “poetry is the work of the psyche, and it’s work that asks more of us as we age.” She states that her poems are universal as well as personal. They explore aging as a developmental stage, not as a commentary on geriatrics or as upbeat advice of living to the fullest, but as building a legacy of the soul.  “Life’s foundational milestones go according to some unspoken schedule and with every stage we can say ‘I’ve never been here before,” she said.