Lennie Hay discusses I Feed the Dead with Martha Greenwald

About the Book:

In I Feed the Dead, the latest collection from Lennie Hay, she focuses on family – “Losing a name can give you a reality.” Family leads to the importance of food and home – “I sauté lines in free verse, sliding in our childhood butter / with a pinch of narrative.” This rich foundation sustains her through pandemic-imposed trauma set against the beauty Mallorca, where “grace enfolds us inside these hours, / makes us more human, as suffering sometimes does.” Whatever food, family, and home mean to each of us, Hay addresses them evocatively, leaving us filled with food for thought..

About the Author:

Lennie Hay writes of cultural fault lines and injustice in her poetry often using images reflecting her passions for water, music, and food. Her 2024 debut poetry collection, Lost in America, explored the complexity of growing up Chinese American in the Midwest. Her second collection, I Feed the Dead, uses a range of poems, and subject matter to honor the dead she has loved—her Chinese father, German Ukrainian Mother and others—while she faces head-on life’s fragility for herself and others in today’s world. Lennie holds degrees from the University of Minnesota, the University of Louisville, and an MFA from Spalding University. She has lived in the Louisville area since 1972 and now spends time in Southern Indiana and Florida. A retired public-school educator, Lennie is married to Bruce Duncan and has two adult sons. Her poetry has been published in local, regional, and international journals, as well as in anthologies, and has won local and regional prizes.