Kimberly Peterson

Poetry for Hope and Healing

I hold grief like a sapling humbled by freezing rain.

Whether you are struggling with physical or personal loss, my poetry and creative nonfiction will offer you hope. After dedicating 35 years as a registered nurse to helping people heal, I returned full-time to my first love, literature. I have published work that is sometimes playful, sometimes painful and sometimes bittersweet but it always works towards collective healing in a wide range of literary magazinesMy poetry received Honourable Mention in The Banister’s 31st poetry competition and my essay was chosen as a Notable Entry in Memoir Magazine’s 2018 #MeToo Essay contest.   

 Drawing on my personal challenges as well as the insights I gained working with people who are dying and their families, my writing explores love, loss and death directly and fearlessly. Working as a palliative care nurse with families who adopted me as “my nurse” provided me with a unique opportunity to distill their wisdom about the essence of living. People express surprise when I tell them that palliative patients filled my days with laughter. You can heal emotionally even as you are dying. Every person, without exception, told me that they wished they had started this journey sooner.    

 My rural property is surrounded by horses, corn and strawberry fields. In my spare time I enjoy nursing sick house plants back to health and teaching grandchildren to identify birds by their marking and songs. My partner and I enjoy traveling. These images infuse my writing. 

 If you know someone in need of a slice of hope as thin as relishing birdsongs or as wide as marvelling in another culture, please forward my writing to them or sign up below to receive a new poem each week. Or follow me on Facebook  www.facebook.com/kimberlypetersonpoet/ 

"I reach for a sea shell, into its cochlea I confess"