After Deborah Keniston was hospitalized with an Alzheimer’s-like disease, her husband, Edward Lueders, an author and English professor, discovered her poetry-filled journals while going through her papers. He knew she had been writing occasional poems, but had not realized the quantity or quality of her work. Thus began his own work transcribing and compiling this selection, which contains Deborah’s words and her artwork.
     Keniston passed away on January 3, 2013. During her 73 years of life, she was an artist, teacher, naturalist, explorer, and traveler. Her poems reflect her deep love of nature, her keen observer’s eye, and her ability to evoke imagery and emotion through language. Because she wrote mainly for herself, her words are truthful and genuine, chosen without the need to impress. In the words of Terry Tempest Williams, “Keniston’s poetry is an open hand... ‘a clearing away’ of what no longer matters and a settling of what does, a gathering of hope lived through language.” There are praise poems to be discovered here, as well as deep expressions of longing, loneliness, and the wish to be known and understood.

Deborah Keniston received an M.A. in art from California State College at Fullerton. She taught art at Fullerton State and Santa Ana College, and taught secondary school English in Long Beach, the TASIS School in Greece, Windsor High School in Vermont, and the Santa Catalina School in Monterey, California. She and her husband Ed Lueders lived in Torrey, Utah, in a home they designed.

Edward Lueders is Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Utah and a veteran of World War II. He is the author of The Clam Lake Papers and nine other books, including the edited volume Writing Natural History (University of Utah Press, 1989). Since the 1940s he has also been a professional jazz pianist.