Private Silences, by Kurtis Ebeling

Poetry, chapbook, 36 pages, from Bottlecap Features.

Private Silences as a collection is invested in the archiving of moments, often small or ordinary. Spare and imagistic in nature, these poems catalogue instances as unextraordinary as watching a partner fold laundry or noticing birds through an open window. They are deeply interested in the nature of memory, the way light moves through and shapes spaces, and the capacity of poetic imagery for creating (and recreating) experience and feeling, both in the moment and in remembering. 

Ultimately, what binds the poems in Private Silences is not an attempt to explore any specific concept or to test the limits of a formal structure or element, but the desire to capture a specific kind of feeling. These poems are, as the title suggests, quiet and reflective, and the moments they archive are ones of close attention to the world and the people or things that live in it. As a result, Private Silences is more than anything a book about noticing, remembering, and the particularity or significance of everyday experiences.

Kurtis Ebeling is a writer and educator living in Spokane, Washington. He’s an MA in English and MFA in Creative Writing graduate from Eastern Washington University, a founding coeditor of Croak literary magazine, and a musician. His poetry has been published with a number of journals, including Art of Nothing Press, Big Table Press, Pictura Journal, The Dewdrop, and Wild Roof Journal.