Publications | 2005

Spitfire gives us her heart, her story, in this collection of poems that hark from the cauldron of human experience and the adept languaging of the body.

Standing with Trees evokes the history in the bones, hers, ours —plumbing the depths of the real experience: of horror, of joy, of love despite the horror. The poems function as a kind of problem-solving tool that leads the reader through the machinery of survival and beyond that —creation.

In the tradition of the Objectivist Poets, such as William Carlos Williams, George Oppen, Lorine Neidecker, Spitfire’s meaning lurks in the stuff of real images, sensations, and the objects of her experience. "Not in ideas, but in things," is a quote attributed to both Wallace Stevens and Williams. Spitfire takes this sensibility one step farther: "Not in ideas, but in body," or more accurately, she writes through the embodiment of both the experience and expression.

Let these poems climb the walls of your consciousness as the vines do, and hear the wind in the trees, standing strong.
—Kate Tarlow Morgan
Rhythms Educator and Editor of “Currents: The Journal for Body Mind Centering®, East Alstead, NH

"There are poems that tell a story, and then there are poems that reach beyond the story, trying to bring balance to the earth, trying to change the world, one small step at a time. Karin's strong, beautiful poems  move the readers along, heart by heart, toward a better world.” 
—Gary Lawless