Deborah Kahan Kolb

My second chapbook of poems is now on sale from Finishing Line Press! Reserve your copy today in support and celebration of poetry and independent publishers:

https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/escape-of-light-by-deborah-kahan-kolb/

Write Me world premiere: Aug 11, 2019 at Flickers Rhode Island International Film Festival (Providence, RI)

Cindependent Film Festival, Aug 29-31, 2019 (Cincinnati, OH):

WINNER, Best Drama Short Film: Write Me

Nominee, Best USA Short Film: Write Me

Nominee, Best Director o...

New short story published in Lunch Ticket.

After Auschwitz

I am vague I am hazy I am indistinct

I am bodiless-

but my black Romani blood river runs    

boils and bubbles and

pushes up Piotr’s daisies

I am faceless-

but my non-Aryan features glow searing hot

my crippled mouth and communist eyes

coal to cinder

fu...

On the anniversary of the white nationalist rally turned deadly riot, I offer this poem published today on New Verse News: 

Charlottesville: A Cautionary Tale

The Nazis have returned. To Charlottesville, VA.

            Pale wizards, frenzied mass, mad with purity....

Emerging, Art of       

Check the box that best describes

your career thus far, the form says, or how you see

yourself as a writer.

It seems I’ve been emerging

for a number of years now. But how do I see

myself - tunneling down the dark fleshy corridor

of my mo...

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This poem addresses the damage caused by teen marriage and pregnancy in insular communities.

Published in Literary Mama (November 2017) 

Au Pair       

I.

A cape starling or amethyst, some little bird –

Afrikaans

warbler, shows up in the greening spring, miniature

flicker-beat fluffing her breast, and gingerly finds

her perch among

our young. From somewhere within the murmuration

she exhales, violet-b...

This love song is inspired by women who love women, women whose freedom is born of lies, women who must sometimes bury their former selves in order to live an authentic life. To these women I offer wedding bells of a different sort. Dedicated to T. and N.

you the shinin...

Do you know, dear Alyssa, there exists a bird

            on an island nation of Marley fame:

masked, beribboned, split tail streaming

            in frenzied flight, tiny wings whirring,...