Poet Bonnie Naradzay says you are "Invited to the Feast"

About Bonnie Naradzay: As a mother, professional, teacher, and longtime volunteer, leading poetry sessions in prisons, a retirement community, and among the homeless, Bonnie has gathered much of both the lost and found, culminating in the publication of , a collection of poems and literary debut coming in her eightieth year.

Her poems appear in AGNI, New Letters (Pushcart Nomination), RHINO, Kenyon Review online, Tampa Review, Florida Review online, EPOCH, Pinch (Pushcart Nomination), American Journal of Poetry, One Art (Pushcart Nomination), Potomac Review, Poetry Miscellany, Dappled Things, The Birmingham Poetry Review, Crab Creek Review, Cumberland River Review, and others. Her poetry manuscript, Invited to the Feast, was published October 28, 2025 by Slant Books. Her essay on friendship was published in the anthology, Deep Beauty, in 2020. At Harvard University in the late 1960's, she was a student in Robert Lowell's class, "The King James Bible as English Literature."

In 2010, Bonnie was awarded the New Orleans MFA poetry prize: a month’s stay with Ezra Pound’s daughter Mary in her castle in Northern Italy. In 2017, she completed the Graduate Institute program at St. John’s College, in Annapolis, Maryland. For years, Bonnie has led weekly poetry sessions at Miriam's Kitchen, a day shelter for the homeless, and at Street Sense. She also leads regular poetry salons at Ingleside, a retirement center; all are located in Washington DC.

About : “Do not hurry your journey,” the poet says midway through this stunning collection. “Better if it lasts for years, so you arrive / laden with all you’ve lost along the way.” Bonnie Naradzay’s journey—as mother, professional, teacher, and longtime volunteer, leading poetry sessions in prisons, a retirement community, and among the homeless—has gathered much of both the lost and found, culminating in the publication of Invited to the Feast, a collection of poems and literary debut coming in her eightieth year.

With wisdom gleaned over time and craft honed over decades, Naradzay presents us with poems that range from dank encampments under city bridges to windswept Irish cliffs and Venetian vistas, finding a common human thread in street talk and the classic tropes of myth and our shared literary heritage.

Invited to the Feast is divided into three sections, each beginning with an epigraph that serves as a guide to reading each part. The poems collected here immerse the reader in the experience of interactive poetry classes, laments for mentors and family members who have gone, and far-flung travels. Free verse consorts with a diversity of forms, including the villanelle, ghazal, pantoum, sestina, and a poem in quatrains with the syllable count of sapphics.

Throughout this collection we sense that, despite loss and brokenness, love is still possible, and every one of us has been invited to this feast.

About our Elaine’s Literary Salon Host, A retired supervisory special agent who writes thrillers, short stories, creative nonfiction, and essays, Jeff has wrestled a suicide bomber, fought the Taliban in combat, and chased terrorists across five continents. He received the Attorney General’s Award for Exceptional Heroism and the DEA Award of Valor. Jeffrey has been interviewed by CNN, National Geographic, and The New York Times. Learn more:

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