Jayne Moore Waldrop author
Lost Places of the
Western Waterland
Article featured in Kentucky Monthly
September 30th, 2021
Read Here
"With brevity and sensitivity, these daily haiku carry us through an unfolding tragedy, all the more delicately for their economy of words, and all the more effectively for their precision of image and feeling."
–Br. Paul Quenon, OCSO
Author of Unquiet Vigil: New and Selected Poems
and In Praise of the Useless Life: A Monk’s Memoir
Pandemic Lent
now available from
Finishing Line Press, Bookshop.org, Amazon.com,
and your favorite independent booksellers.
Praise for Pandemic Lent
"The world is still so/ beautiful writes Jayne Moore Waldrop in her enthralling new collection Pandemic Lent, A Season in Poems. Her petite entries, all but a few, offered as various forms of haiku, encapsulate the experiences and fears of so many of us during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic and represent her promise of faith – to write daily. This collection will stand the test of time as a well-turned reminder of human resilience."
–Kari Gunter-Seymour, Ohio Poet Laureate, Author of A Place So Deep Inside America It Can’t Be Seen
"With truly remarkable and arresting haiku, Waldrop leads us through the tumult of the early months of our global health crisis with sensitivity and insight. Her valuable and succinct introduction explains how the poems grew out of her Lenten discipline for the season. The work itself captures the foreboding of the siege of Covid-19, while effectively delineating the little details of a spring both natural and unnatural. A most unique daybook, it offers comfort and hope much as does the Christian ethos, never denying death but always averring new life and rebirth. Or, as one of the finest pieces in this collection says, she gives us “prayers for peace and a path / through new wilderness.” We need such paths more than ever and for Waldrop’s pointing a way we should all be grateful."
–Marc Harshman, Poet Laureate of West Virginia and author of Woman in Red Anorak, winner of the Blue Lynx Prize, Lynx House Press.
Retracing My Steps is available from Finishing Line Press, Lexington Art League, Kentucky Artisan Center, and Amazon
"Jayne Moore Waldrop’s Retracing My Steps is presented as a chapbook but the power of the poems inside give it the force of a fully achieved book. Waldrop’s voice is strong, clear, confident, convincing. The nineteen poems, several two pages in length, reflect the mature consciousness of a strong, observant woman who shares what she sees and hears, thinks, experiences and remembers. An occasional colloquial touch in some of the poems grounds the writing in regional earth. Retracing My Steps is a solid achievement."
–Gurney Norman, Kentucky Poet Laureate 2009-2010, Author of Divine Right’s Trip and Kinfolks: The Wilgus Stories
"In this debut chapbook, Jayne Moore Waldrop maps her own and her family’s journey with a clear eye and a steady voice….An added gift of these carefully crafted poems is how they call us to consider our own journeys. I look forward to where Waldrop will take us next."
–George Ella Lyon, Kentucky Poet Laureate 2015-2016, author of Many-Storied House: Poems and Where I’m From
If you’d like to read more of Jayne’s work, check out these links.
Fiction
"For What It's Worth," Appalachian Review, Fall 2020.
"Signs," Anthology of Appalachian Writers Volume XI (2019).
“View from Within,” Sequestrum Literature & Art, 2018.
“Mint Springs,” selected Judge’s Choice in the 2016 Still Journal Fiction Contest, judged by Amy Greene.
“Dry Ground,” Appalachian Heritage, Special Fiction Section: Deep Waters, Spring 2016
“A Score Lower Than My Age,” Deep South Magazine, December 2015.
“Tidings,” Luna Station Quarterly, 2015.
Poetry
What I've Learned in a Pandemic," In Isolation: An Anthology (2020)
"The Night Earth Stepped In," "The Year We Fell Apart," and "Near El Paso on the Feast of the Holy Innocents," Appalachian Review, Fall 2020.
"Ashes, Ashes," Still: The Journal, Fall 2020
"Mantle of Invisibility" and "Eclipse," Women Speak Anthology: The Women of Appalachia Project Volume 5.
"Drowned Town," "Retracing My Steps," "Expat Elegy," Anthology of Appalachian Writers Volume (2018).
“Coming through Cumberland Gap," The Paddock Review, Spring 2018.
"Drowned Town," Kentucky Monthly, 2018 Penned Poetry Contest.
Book reviews and columns
At the Center of All Beauty: Solitude and the Creative Life by Fenton Johnson, Appalachian Review, Summer 2020.
“These Are March’s Must-Read Books by Kentucky Authors,”
Courier-Journal, March 2017.
The Man Who Loved Birds by Fenton Johnson,
Appalachian Heritage, Summer 2016.
Utopia Drive: A Road Trip Through America’s Most Radical Idea by Erik Reece
Appalachian Heritage, Fall 2016.
“Regional Books for the Holidays”
Courier-Journal, December 2016.
“Garth Greenwell: From Flunking English to Celebrated Author,”
Courier-Journal, February 2016.
Creative Nonfiction
"Dog and Bone," Deep South Magazine, June 2019.
"Life on the Backside," Kentucky Monthly, 2013.
"Being Santa," Kentucky Monthly, 2013.