Kelly Sargent

Born hard of hearing and adopted in Luxembourg, Kelly Sargent grew up with a deaf twin sister in Europe and the United States. She mourned the loss of her twin, in a sense, when she left to attend a residential school for the Deaf as a preteen, and again when she suffered a life-changing injury as an adult. In childhood, she had also taken on the roles of sign language interpreter and teacher, and she later experienced her twin’s daily absence as a profound loss. She then began a search for her own identity and place in a world without a mirror. A collection of poems, a memoir in verse, celebrating their twinhood and processing her loss appears in her award-nominated poetry chapbook, Seeing Voices: Poetry in Motion (Kelsay Books, 2022).

Links to several book reviews appear on her book page at Kelsay Books: https://kelsaybooks.com/products/seeing-voices-poetry-in-motion

Seeing Voices: Poetry in Motion can also be found at RIT in Rochester, New York in the poetry section of the university’s library.

A second memoir in verse entitled Echoes in My Eyes is forthcoming (Kelsay Books, 2024).

She is also the author of a collection of modern haiku and senryu poems entitled Bookmarks (Red Moon Press, 2023). Short form poetry honors include: The Haiku Foundation Touchstone Awards for Individual Poems 2022 (Nomination), The H. Gene Murtha Memorial Senryu Contest 2023 (Honorable Mention), Golden Haiku Poetry Contest 2022 (Recognition), The Heron’s Nest Readers' Choice Awards 2022 (Special Mention), and The Mukai Haiku Festival Poetry Competition 2023 (Winner, Nature category). Her Poet Profile at The Haiku Foundation appears at:

https://thehaikufoundation.org/poet-details/?IDclient=2848

The collection, Bookmarks is available exclusively at www.redmoonpress.com.

Other cover art and poems have appeared or are forthcoming in more than seventy literary publications in the United States and abroad, most recently including Rattle, Chestnut Review, and Broad River Review. Honors include: The Ron Rash Award in Poetry 2023 (Finalist), Eric Hoffer Award 2022 (Nomination), and Best of the Net 2021 (Nomination).

She has written for SIGNews, a newspaper for the Deaf and HOH community, and worked with deaf students in education. She also reviewed for a literary magazine whose mission is to make visible the artistic expression of sexual violence survivors, and currently serves as Creative Nonfiction Editor of The Bookends Review and on the Editorial Board of Beyond Words.

She is also the author of a children's storybook entitled Sundae Sundays, Winner of the 2023 Firebird Book Award (Children’s Inspirational), available also at Barnes & Noble and Waterstones.

Watch Storytime Pup Kids Books Read Aloud - Sundae Sundays here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTaUOOvWBuY

Visit www.kellysargent.com to learn more about her.